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THE  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF 
THE  AMERICAN  NEGRO 


BY 

MARIOK  J.  MAYO 


Sabmitted  in  Partial  FnlfiUment  of  tlie  Reqairementa  for  tlie  Degree  of  Dootor  of 
Philosophy,  under  the  Faculty  of  Philosophy,  in  Colambia  University 


IslMtVi — — 


,i-U/f 


Reprinted  from  the  Archives  of  Psycholog^y,  No.  /S8. 


NEW  YORK  CITY 
NOVEMBER,  1913 


THE  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF 
THE  AMEllICAN  NEGIU) 


BY 

MAEION  J.  MAYO 


Submitted  in  Partial  Fulfillment  of  the  Reqaireraents  for  the  Degree  of  Doctor  of 
Philosophy,  under  the  Faculty  of  Philosophy,  In  Columbia  University 


Reprinted  from  the  Archives  of  Psychology,  No.  28. 


NEW  YORK  CITY 
NOVEMBER,  1913 


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V 


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C,'-' 


Press  of 

The  New  era  printing  company 

Lancaster,  pa 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Chapter  I 
The  Measurement  of  Racial  Mental  Differences 1 

Chapter  II 
Data  and  Methods 10 

Chapter  III 
Comparative  Ages  and  Time  of  Attendance 18 

Chapter  IV 
Comparative  Scholastic  Efficiency 26; 

Chapter  V 
The  Educational  Significance  of  the  Data 46 

Chapter  VI 
Conclusion    51 


282328 


THE  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEGRO 


CHAPTER    I 

The  Measurement  of  Racial  jMental  Differences 

The  numerous  groups  of  men  that  people  the  earth  present  to  us 
far  from  a  homogeneous  picture.  Long  before  the  dawn  of  history 
there  was  to  be  found  on  the  several  continents  a  multiplicity  of  phys- 
ical tj'pes,  languages,  manners,  customs,  and  states  of  social  develop- 
ment. These  various  differences  among  men  have  ever  constituted 
an  interesting  and  fruitful  field  for  scientific  and  speculative  enquiry. 

Students  of  the  human  species  have  with  great  diligence  described 
in  minuteness  of  detail  the  physical  characteristics  of  the  various 
races  and  tribes  of  men ;  and  the  existence  among  them  of  intellectual, 
moral,  and  temperamental  differences  is  a  matter  of  common  observa- 
tion among  historians  and  anthropologists.  Institutions,  arts,  laws, 
beliefs,  customs,  and  other  direct  manifestations  of  the  mental  life 
have  presented  quite  as  striking  variations  among  peoples  as  have 
their  physical  attributes  of  form,  feature,  and  color.  General  esti- 
mates of  these  mental  differences  may  be  found  scattered  widely 
through  the  pages  of  history  and  science.  To  treat  of  the  mental 
capacities  and  traits  of  men  has  always  been  considered  within  the 
scope  of  anthropology ;  while  recent  developments  of  psychology  have 
so  enlarged  its  province  as  to  make  the  comparative  study  of  the 
mental  activities  of  different  human  groups  a  legitimate  field  of  psy- 
chological enquiry.  Numerous  attempts  have  already  been  made  to 
describe  and  explain  the  differences  and  liknesses  in  the  minds  and 
characters  of  the  various  peoples. 

It  has  always  been  regarded  as  quite  obvious  that,  in  point  of  view 
of  mental  capacity,  some  races  stood  distinctly  higher  than  others. 
Civilized  man,  surrounded  by  his  self-made  resources  of  comfort  and 
power,  could  hardly  escape  the  feeling  of  superiority  when  looking 
upon  his  savage  neighbor  in  squalor  and  need.  It  was  very  natural 
to  refer  differences  in  economic  status  and  social  development  to 
differences  in  mental  ability  and  to  corresponding  differences  in  the 
capacity  of  peoples  for  achievement  and  progress.  Civilized  man 
has  ever  regarded  uncivilized  man  as  inferior.  Among  Europeans 
and  their  descendants  in  all  parts  of  the  globe  there  has  always  ex- 
isted a  feeling  of  the  superiority  of  the  white  race.     It  is  a  feeling 

1 


2  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBICAN  NEGRO 

"bred  in  the  bone,"  and  so  strong  that  it  can  hardly  be  eradicated. 
The  feeling  is  probably  due  in  a  large  measure  to  the  leadership 
which  the  white  race  has  borne  in  civilization.  But  it  would  be 
wrong  to  suppose  that  this  feeling  is  peculiar  to  the  white  race.  A 
sense  of  superiority  is  also  shared,  and  in  an  equal  or  even  greater 
measure,  by  other  races,  especially  where  the  influence  of  some  alien 
people  has  not  become  predominant,  or  strikingly  forceful,  among 
them.  Oriental  peoples  are  said  to  regard  Western  nations  with  "a 
contempt  in  comparison  with  which  our  contempt  for  them  is  feeble.'' 

How  then,  we  may  well  ask,  are  we  to  ascertain  the  relative  worth 
of  races?  "What  methods  of  measurement  are  to  be  employed  in 
determining  their  comparative  mental  endowment  ?  It  must  be  said 
that  for  the  most  part  the  estimates  that  have  been  hitherto  made 
have  been  based  upon  observations  gained  from  practical  experience 
in  dealing  with  the  races.  As  an  example  of  the  use  of  the  observa- 
tion method  of  comparing  the  mental  worth  of  races,  we  quote  as 
follows  from  a  recent  volume  by  Professor  Ross:  "To  forty-three 
men  who,  as  educators,  missionaries,  and  diplomats,  have  had  good 
opportunity  to  learn  the  'feel'  of  the  Chinese  mind,  I  put  the  ques- 
tion, 'Do  you  find  the  intellectual  capacity  of  the  yellow  race  equal 
to  that  of  the  white  race?'  All  but  five  answered  'yes,'  and  one 
sinologue  of  varied  experience  as  missionary,  university  president, 
and  legation  adviser,  left  me  gasping  with  the  statement,  '  Most  of  us 
who  have  spent  twenty-five  years  or  more  out  here  come  to  feel  that 
the  yellow  race  is  the  normal  human  type,  while  the  white  race  is  a 
'sport.'  "^  An  estimate  of  this  sort  is  based  solely  upon  observation 
and  practical  experience,  and  the  reports  of  different  observers  are 
likely  to  show  great  discrepancies.  As  Deniker  points  out:  "Each 
traveller,  each  observer,  tends  to  judge  in  his  own  way  a  given  people 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  relations  (pacific,  hostile,  etc.)  which 
he  has  had  with  it. ' '-  Hence  while  such  estimates  may  be  admitted 
to  have  a  certain  rough  validity,  they  still  belong  to  the  domain  of 
opinion,  and  can  never  have  the  scientific  value  that  attaches  to 
comparisons  based  upon  actual  measurements. 

Underlying  the  whole  discussion  of  comparative  mental  differ- 
ences there  has  until  recently  been  the  tacit  assumption  that  those 
races  most  advanced  in  civilization  were  superior  races.  The  as- 
sumption of  superiority  was  based  upon  the  degree  of  attainment  in 
the  arts  and  sciences  of  civilized  life.  Peoples  of  culture  were 
peoples  of  superior  mental  worth.  Such  an  assumption  was  both 
natural  and  plausible.     Even  bodily  form  and  features  came  to  be 

1" The  Changing  Chinese,"  p.  61. 
=  "The  Eaees  of  Men,"  p.  121. 


MEASUBEMENT  OF  BACIAL  MENTAL  DIFFEBENCES  3 

regarded  as  a  stamp  of  racial  nobility.  The  physical  traits  of  civ- 
ilized races  thus  came  to  be  considered  marks  of  superior  racial 
worth;  while  those  of  savage  peoples  were  regarded  as  marks  of 
racial  inferiority.  Purely  external  characteristics  have  thus  often 
come  to  be  employed  as  criteria  of  relative  mental  capacity  and 
worth. 

It  is  true  that  the  physical  differences  between  the  races  are  so 
striking  as  almost  to  obscure  their  far  more  fundamental  likenesses. 
There  are  considerable  racial  variations  in  weight  and  stature,  in  the 
shape  and  size  of  the  head,  in  the  length,  abundance,  and  texture  of 
the  hair,  in  the  pigmentation  of  the  skin  and  eyes,  and  in  the  relative 
dimensions  of  the  various  parts  of  the  body.  White  Europeans  have 
always  regarded  their  type  as  ideal — or  at  least  as  the  most  nearly 
perfect  human  type — and  they  have  not  hesitated  to  consider  wide 
departures  therefrom  as  evidence  of  inferiority.  Thus  the  orthogna- 
thism of  the  Caucasian  has  been  believed  to  be  an  essentially  human 
trait,  while  the  prognathism  of  the  Negro  has  been  regarded  as  giving 
him  an  animal  expression,  and  as  approximating  him  in  type  to  the 
ape.  His  long  arms  and  receding  forehead  were  said  to  be  simian 
traits,  and  have  been  looked  upon  as  evidences  of  racial  inferiority. 

First  of  all,  then,  as  an  objective  standard,  differences  in  physique, 
and  especially  in  physiognomy,  have  been  regarded  as  sufficient 
ground  to  infer  differences  in  mental  ability,  and  to  justify  a  classi- 
fication of  races  as  lower  and  higher.  Camper  first  advanced  the 
theory  that  an  increase  in  the  facial  angle  may  be  taken  as  a  sign  of 
superior  intelligence.  Figguier  says:  *'A  relatively  exact  judgment 
may  be  formed  from  the  size  of  this  angle  as  to  the  value  of  a  race 
from  the  intellectual  point  of  view. '  '^  Brinton  may  be  quoted  to  the 
same  effect  regarding  the  physical  criteria  of  racial  mental  inequality : 
"We  are  accustomed  familiarly  to  speak  of  higher  and  lower  races, 
and  we  are  justified  in  this  even  from  merely  physical  considerations. 
These  indeed  bear  intimate  relation  to  mental  capacity,  and  where 
the  body  presents  many  points  of  arrested  or  retarded  development, 
we  may  be  sure  that  the  mind  will  also. '  '* 

An  obvious  fault  of  this  mode  of  argument  is  the  assumption  of 
an  ideal  or  superior  physical  type,  endowed  by  nature  with  a  higher 
order  of  intelligence.  In  the  first  place,  such  a  type,  if  there  be  one, 
should  not  be  naively  assumed,  but  scientifically  determined.  It 
would  be  necessary  to  know  that  a  certain  physical  type  is  charac- 
terized by  a  distinct  measure  of  mental  superiority.  It  would  be 
necessary  to  establish  a  definite  and  fixed  correlation  between  physi- 

*" Human  Race,"  p.  506. 

*" Races  and  Peoples,"  p.  47. 


4  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBICAN  NEGBO 

cal  and  mental  traits,  before  any  legitimate  inference  could  proceed 
from  physical  features  to  mental  estimates.  Hence  any  attempt  at 
the  arrangement  of  races  in  an  order  of  mental  ability  which  is  based 
upon  mere  differences  in  physical  features,  without  such  well-estab- 
lished mental  correlations,  can  give  no  final  results.  A  more  prom- 
ising physical  criterion  of  the  mental  capacity  of  races  was  found 
in  the  development  of  craniometry.  This,  with  its  measurement  of 
skull  form  and  capacity,  and  of  cranial  weight,  was  believed  to  offer 
a  scientific  means  of  determining  the  order  of  races  in  mental  ability. 
Especially  would  this  seem  to  afford  evidence  quite  conclusive  of  the 
matter  when  supplemented  by  cranial  anatomy,  with  favorable  or 
unfavorable  modifications  in  the  complexity  of  cerebral  structure. 

Modern  science  has  shown  that  the  brain  is  the  most  important 
physical  organ  in  determining  the  hierarchy  of  animal  forms  and 
in  establishing  the  superiority  and  dignity  of  man.  The  human 
brain  has  indeed  attained  to  an  extraordinary  development,  a  fact 
of  the  highest  and  most  far-reaching  significance  in  the  life  order  of 
the  world.  We  assume  that  the  remarkable  influence  played  by  con- 
sciousness in  the  evolution  of  the  human  species  has  been  associated 
with,  and  dependent  upon,  this  organ.  Hence  it  was  that  as  scien- 
tific methods  and  interests  developed,  students  turned  with  expectancy 
and  zeal  to  a  study  of  the  human  nervous  system  as  a  basis  for  a 
comparison  of  the  mental  capacity  of  the  races.  The  determination 
of  the  comparative  size  and  form  of  the  skull,  and  the  comparative 
weight  and  structure  of  the  brain,  has  constituted  one  of  the  most 
interesting  and  important  investigations  of  modern  anthropology. 
The  cephalic  indices,  cranial  capacities  and  brain  weights  of  all  races 
were  sought  with  enthusiasm,  with  the  result  that  racial  differences 
were  found  to  be  considerable.  These  differences  have  been  made  the 
basis  of  many  speculations  regarding  the  intellectual  capacities  of 
different  races.  But  nothing  that  seems  final  has  resulted  therefrom. 
A  full  consideration  of  the  facts  as  they  have  thus  far  been  recorded 
seems  to  establish  no  reliable  correlation — certainly  none  in  individ- 
ual cases — between  intellectual  pre-eminence  and  either  the  shape  of 
the  skull  or  the  size  of  the  brain. 

Craniology  and  anthropological  studies  in  general  have  there- 
fore failed  thus  far  to  give  any  very  definite  quantitative  knowl- 
edge regarding  the  mental  differences  of  races.  On  this  subject 
Deniker  says:  "We  are  unable  to  affirm  anything  when  we  have 
once  made  up  our  minds  to  escape  from  the  commonplace  generalities 
that  savages  are  wanting  in  foresight  and  general  ideas,  that  they 
are  cruel,  that  their  imitative  faculties  are  highly  developed,  etc."^ 

""The  Eaces  of  Man,"  p.  121. 


MEASUREMENT  OF  RACIAL  MENTAL  DIFFERENCES  6 

Yet  it  is  an  accepted  postulate  of  modern  physiological  psychology 
that  cerebral  activity  underlies  and  conditions  psychical  activity. 
And  the  character  of  cerebral  activity  is  of  course  dependent  upon 
cerebral  structure.  If  then  our  knowledge  of  the  anatomy  of  the 
brain  were  sufficiently  refined,  we  might  be  able  to  discover  the  key 
to  differences  in  race  psychology,  and  find  ample  ground  for  an  in- 
ference of  real  dift'erences  in  mental  capacity.  But  we  are  far  from 
that  at  present.  Our  knowledge  of  the  morphology  of  the  brain  is 
yel  too  meager  for  us  to  know  anything  of  great  value  as  to  what 
racial  differences  actually  are  in  the  minute  but  highly  refined  struc- 
tures on  which  the  mental  life  may  be  supposed  to  depend.  Until 
physiological  psychology  shall  have  completed  its  w^ork,  we  shall 
probably  not  be  able,  from  a  comparative  study  of  the  brain,  to  make 
out  either  a  proof  or  an  estimate  of  mental  differences  among  the 
races  of  men. 

But  wdll  the  criterion  of  the  comparative  achievement  of  the  races 
in  civilization  serve  to  measure  their  relative  mental  ability?  Are 
those  peoples  who  have  developed  art,  science,  and  invention,  and 
have  gained  such  a  mastery  over  man  and  over  the  forces  of  nature, 
to  be  judged  as  in  any  w^ay  superior  in  actual  mental  endowment 
to  peoples  who  have  remained  hitherto  in  a  primitive  state?  The 
presumption  may  be  in  their  favor,  but  it  is  not  conclusive.  En- 
vironment, opportunity,  external  circumstance,  outward  stimulus, 
play  such  a  part  in  the  development  of  men  and  nations,  that  only 
after  a  most  thoi'ough  trying-out  could  any  one  feel  sure  of  a  judg- 
ment- as  to  what  are,  or  what  are  not,  the  possibilities  of  a  people. 
Achievement  in  civilization  can  not  be  considered  a  sufficient  test 
of  capacity  for  civilization.  History  shows  such  achievement  as  a 
criterion  of  race  capacity,  or  race  superiority,  to  be  untenable.  The 
Chinese  were  civilized  long  before  the  peoples  of  Europe.  Within 
the  course  of  a  few  generations  ancient  Athens  passed  from  a  state  of 
barbarism  to  a  state  of  culture  that  has  in  many  respects  never  been 
surpassed.  The  proud  Eoman  looked  with  contempt  upon  the  bar- 
barous Germans  roaming  over  the  plains  and  through  the  forests 
of  Central  Europe.  Yet  from  these  wild  hunters  and  fishermen  of 
the  time  of  Tacitus  have  come  the  leaders  and  promoters  of  modern 
civilization.  The  Germans  were  at  that  time  an  undeveloped  people. 
Nevertheless  they  have  shown  that  they  were  capable  of  the  highest 
development.  We  can  not  therefore  say  that  because  a  people  is 
uncivilized,  it  can  not  attain  to  civilization.  We  must  distinguish 
between  the  attainments  and  the  possibilities  of  a  people.  The  prog- 
ress of , the  Japanese  in  the  last  half  century,  their  capacity  not  only 
to  imitate  and  absorb  the  civilization  developed  by  other  nations,  but 


\^ 


6  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBIC  AN  NEGRO 

to  keep  their  own  counsel  and  to  do  things  in  their  own  way,  has  been 
such  as  would  cause  any  careful  student  of  race  problems  to  hesitate 
to  set  them  down  now  as  being  only  an  "average"  people. 

It  must  be  evident  that  ultimately  we  have  no  way  of  judging 
of  the  capacity  of  individuals  or  races  except  by  what  they  can  do. 
Achievement  must  be  the  final  measure  of  capacity.  Capacity,  how- 
ever, must  be  tested  under  favorable  conditions.  It  may  indeed 
create  a  presumption  against  a  people's  aptitude  for  civilization  that 
they  have  lived  from  time  immemorial  with  little  or  no  independent 
progress;  but  until  the  matter  is  subjected  to  reasonable  test  under 
favorable  circumstances,  we  can  not  fix  boundaries  to  the  progress 
to  which  that  people  may  attain.  If  they  have  lived  hitherto  without 
progress  under  a  certain  set  of  circumstances,  we  are  not  in  a  posi- 
tion to  infer  that  they  are  incapable  of  progress,  even  equal  to  that 
of  the  most  advanced  nations,  under  circumstances  more  favorable. 

We  have  seen  that  w^e  can  not  rightly  infer  a  difference  in  the 
mental  capacity  of  races  from  differences  in  physical  characteristics ; 
that  the  size  or  shape  of  the  head  can  not  be  taken  as  an  index  of 
intellectual  ability ;  and  that  the  culture  of  a  race  at  a  given  time  can 
not  be  regarded  as  a  measure  of  its  capabilities  for  advancement. 
The  measuring  of  racial  differences  in  mental  traits  is  evidently  a 
complex  and  difficult  problem.  Nor  do  these  differences  now  appear 
so  striking  or  obvious  as  they  were  formerly  supposed  to  be.  There 
is  indeed  a  strong  tendency  among  students  of  racial  problems  to 
regard  the  races,  not  only  as  not  having  been  proved  unequal  in 
mental  endowment,  but  as  being,  so  far  as  mental  inheritance  is  con- 
cerned, upon  a  basis  of  substantial  equality.  In  discussing  this 
problem,  G.  Spiller  says:  "We  are  under  the  necessity  of  concluding 
that  an  impartial  investigation  would  be  inclined  to  look  upon  the 
various  important  peoples  of  the  world  as  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
essentially  equal  in  intellect,  enterprise,  morality,  and  physique."^ 
In  a  comparative  study  of  races,  Jean  Finot  says:  "The  conclusion 
forces  itself  upon  us  that  there  are  no  inferior  and  superior  races, 
but  only  races  and  peoples  living  outside  or  within  the  influence  of 
culture.  The  appearance  of  civilization  and  its  evolution  among 
certain  white  peoples  and  within  a  certain  geographical  latitude  is 
only  the  effect  of  circumstances."'^  It  must  be  said,  however,  that 
these  are  but  instances  of  an  expression  of  opinion  contrary  to  that 
which  is  ordinarily  received.  They  are  by  no  means  statements  of 
carefully  tested  knowledge. 

•3 ' '  Papers  on  Inter-Racial  Problems, ' '  p.  35. 
'"Race  Prejudice,"  p.  308. 


MEASUBEMENT  OF  FACIAL  MENTAL  DIFFERENCES  7 

The  estimates  hitherto  made  of  racial  differences  in  mental  traits 
have  always  proceeded  upon  a  very  slender  basis  of  relevant  and 
carefully  ascertained  fact.  It  seems  necessary  to  find  some  new 
method  of  attack  before  any  satisfactory  solution  of  the  problem  can 
be  made.  We  should,  if  possible,  find  some  way  of  making  actual 
mental  measurements,  and  base  our  study  and  estimate  of  mental 
differences  between  races  on  the  facts  thus  obtained.  There  seem  to 
be  two  reliable  sources  of  such  quantitative  data :  first,  the  direct 
measurement  of  mental  traits  by  means  of  carefully  devised  mental 
tests;  and,  secondly,  the  comparison  of  the  relative  attainment  and 
efficiency  of  different  racial  groups  in  the  same  kind  of  mental  work, 
wherever  such  work  is  performed  under  like  conditions,  and  is  meas- 
ured by  the  same  standard,  or  by  such  standards  as  are  easily  reduc- 
ible to  a  common  measure. 

Little  effort  has  until  recently  been  made  to  work  out  and  apply 
exact  and  reliable  methods  for  mental  measurements  and  the  quanti- 
tative determination  of  mental  differences.  Some  advance  has  now 
been  made  in  this  direction  by  the  aid  of  experimental  psychology. 
Series  of  mental  tests  have  been  formulated  for  measuring  mental 
development  and  capacity,  but  the  intricacy  of  the  quantitative  study 
of  psychic  phenomena  makes  progress  in  this  field  of  investigation 
slow.  The  matter  of  devising  satisfactory  mental  tests  is  far  from 
being  simple  or  easy ;  and  the  application  of  a  test  once  devised  is  of 
great  practical  difficulty,  especially  in  the  case  of  alien  peoples  whose 
language,  habits,  manners,  and  customs  are  widely  different  from  our 
own.  The  underst'anding  of  the  test,  the  control  of  attention,  and  the 
introspection  of  the  subjects  tested,  are  all  sources  of  doubt  and 
error.  Satisfactory  introspection  in  uncivilized  subjects  is  very  diffi- 
cult to  obtain.  Though  it  still  be  far  off  in  achievement,  a  direct 
measurement  of  mental  phenomena  seems  to  offer  the  most  hopeful 
means  of  a  final  solution  of  the  problem  of  racial  differences  in  mental 
traits.  A  movement  was  fairly  begun  in  this  direction  when  the 
Cambridge  Anthropological  Society  sent  out  an  expedition  in  1898  to 
study  in  a  scientific  manner  the  mental  life  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Torres  Straits.  "For  the  first  time  trained  experimental  psycholo- 
gists investigated  by  means  of  an  adequate  laboratory  equipment  a 
people  in  a  low  stage  of  culture  under  their  ordinary  conditions  of 
life.  The  foundations  of  etlinical  experimental  psychology  were  thus 
laid."®  With  the  results  of  this  expedition  and  a  few  similar  studies, 
we  have  what  may  be  called  the  beginnings  of  a  new  era  in  race 
psychology. 

'Alfred  C.  Haddon,  "History  of  Anthropology,"  p.  104. 


8  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEGRO 

The  measurements  so  far  made  have  been  in  the  main  of  psy- 
chophysical processes.  The  tests  have  served  to  dispel  many  for- 
merly widespread  errors  and  exaggerations  as  to  the  acuity  of  the 
senses  of  primitive  peoples.  The  extraordinary  power  of  sight  which 
savage  tribes  are  reputed  to  possess  seems  to  be  due  more  to  the  train- 
ing and  experience  incident  to  their  modes  of  life  than  to  native 
visual  acuity.  The  same  may  be  said  of  their  power  to  perceive  and 
interpret  sound.  ' '  The  general  conclusion  which  may  be  drawn  from 
the  available  evidence  is  that  pure  sense-acuity  is  much  the  same  in 
all  races,  .  .  .  and  that  the  frequent  superiority  of  the  savage  over 
civilized  man  in  his  recognition  of  what  is  going  on  around  him  in 
nature  is  due  to  his  trained  powers  of  observation,  powers  usually 
limited  in  scope,  but  very  highly  developed  in  special  directions. '  '^ 

When  we  come  to  measure  and  compare  the  higher  psychical 
functions  of  individuals  or  races  the  problem  is  at  once  vastly  more 
difficult.  No  completely  satisfactory  tests  have  yet  been  devised  for 
measuring  the  higher  mental  processes.  Yet  the  most  substantial 
and  convincing  work  in  the  determination  of  the  relative  mental 
capacity  of  races  will,  in  all  probability,  come  chiefly  from  a  direct 
measurement  on  a  large  scale  of  mental  capacity  by  the  methods  of 
experimental  psychology.  The  devising  of  a  satisfactory  series  of 
mental  tests,  and  of  methods  for  so  standardizing  the  conditions  of 
the  tests  as  to  make  results  reasonably  comparable,  is  a  problem  of 
extraordinary  difficulty,  but  hardly  one  that  will  baffle  the  pains- 
taking spirit  and  subtile  ingenuity  of  modern  research.  Our  methods 
of  conducting  such  investigations,  though  still  defective  and  inade- 
quate, are  being  improved  and  enlarged ;  and  our  results,  despite  the 
complexity  and  elusiveness  of  the  facts  to  be  studied,  will  gradually 
attain  to  requisite  accuracy  and  reliability.  In  this  way  it  is  con- 
fidently to  be  expected  that  racial  differences  in  mental  traits  will 
eventually  submit  themselves  to  exact  description  and  measurement. 

The  second  method  above  mentioned  of  obtaining  quantitative 
mental  measurements  which  may  be  used  for  a  comparative  study  of 
the  mental  ability  of  racial  groups  is  more  dependent  upon  circum- 
stances; but  on  account  of  the  large  number  of  measurements  that 
are  sometimes  readily  accessible,  it  may,  with  comparatively  little 
labor,  lead  to  results  qtiite  as  important  and  reliable  as  those  obtained 
by  mental  tests.  If  two  racial  groups  in  considerable  numbers  are 
engaged  in  like  mental  work,  and  if  the  conditions  under  which  the 
work  is  done  are  practically  the  same,  then,  if  we  can  determine  the 
amount  of  work  done  by  each  group  we  may  regard  this  as  a  measure 

*W.  H.  Eivers,  "Observation  on  the  Senses  of  the  Todas,"  British  Journal 
of  Psychology,  December,  1905, 


MEASUEEMENT  OF  BACIAL  MENTAL  DIFFEBENCES  9 

of  its  capacity  for  the  work.  The  work  done  is  a  function  of  the  ca- 
pacity applied,  and  varies  directly  therewith.  Hence  a  measure  of  the 
amount  of  work  performed  by  a  group  under  these  conditions  may 
be  regarded  as  a  measure  of  the  group's  capacity  for  this  work. 
Material  for  this  sort  of  investigation  may  be  found  in  all  educational 
institutions  in  which  the  student-body  is  made  up  of  different  racial 
groups.  Anthropologists  have  not  failed  to  note  the  value  of  this 
source  of  measurement  in  estimating  and  testing  racial  capacity. 
The  marks  of  teachers  made  for  determining  the  relative  standing 
of  pupils,  their  monthly  progress,  and  their  fitness  for  promotion, 
furnish  quantitative  data  for  comparative  study.  We  have  availed 
ourselves  of  such  data  in  connection  with  the  high  schools  of  the 
City  of  New  York  for  determining  the  relative  scholastic  ability  of 
white  and  colored  pupils.  The  pupils  of  each  group  are  here  pur- 
suing the  same  kind  of  work;  this  work  is  measured  at  frequent 
interv^als  by  the  same  standards;  and  measurements  of  the  work 
actually  done  by  each  pupil  are  indicated  by  the  teachers'  marks. 
By  a  statistical  treatment  of  these  marks  we  have  determined  the 
comparative  scholarship  of  the  white  and  the  colored  pupils,  which, 
under  the  existing  conditions,  may  be  regarded  as  also  an  index  of 
their  relative  scholastic  ability.  Such  investigation  should  con- 
tribute something  of  definite  value,  not  only  to  educational  theory 
and  practise,  but  also  to  the  study  of  the  comparative  psychology 
of  races. 

It  may  be  pointed  out  here  that  the  conclusions  derived  from  this 
study  are,  for  the  most  part,  coincident  with  views  that  have  long 
been  of  general  acceptance.  They  differ  widely  from  these  views, 
however,  in  the  way  in  which  they  have  been  obtained.  It  is  the 
method  of  their  derivation  which  gives  chief  value  to  these  conclu- 
sions. They  are  more  definite  and  more  reliable  than  mere  obser- 
vations or  opinions  could  ever  be.  They  are  based  upon  numerical 
data — ^upon  measured  facts.  It  is  true  that  these  measurements 
were  made  for  a  different  purpose  than  the  one  here  employed.  But 
this  does  not  detract  from  their  value  or  reliability,  as  the  practical 
end  which  they  were  designed  to  meet  necessitated  as  great  accuracy 
and  care  in  their  determination  as  could  be  obtained  by  the  rather 
crude  methods  of  measuring  mental  attainments  which  are  still  in 
general  use. 


CHAPTER   II 

Data  and  Methods 

The  precise  problem  whose  solution  is  attempted  in  this  study  is 
a  determination  by  a  comparison  of  school  marks  of  the  relative 
efficiency  in  scholarship  of  the  white  and  colored  pupils  in  the  high 
schools  of  the  City  of  New  York.  Working  under  as  nearly  identical 
conditions  as  are  anywhere  existent,  pursuing  the  same  branches  of 
study,  being  measured  by  the  same  standards  of  scholarship,  and 
having  previously  received  like  elementary  and  grammar  school 
training,  it  is  obvious  that  a  valuable  opportunity  is  here  afforded  for 
a  comparative  study  of  these  two  groups  of  pupils,  and  for  the  ascer- 
tainment of  whatever  differences  in  scholastic  ability  there  may  exist 
between  them.  It  seems  safe  to  infer  under  these  circumstances, 
where  opportunities  for  improvement  have  been  so  largely  identical^ 
that  any  marked  differences  that  may  appear  between  the  groups 
are  to  be  attributed,  in  the  main  at  least,  to  the  influence  of  race 
heredity  rather  than  to  that  of  the  physical  or  social  environment. 
The  main  advantage  of  the  study  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  eases  con- 
sidered have  been  freed  to  a  very  great  extent  from  disturbing  ex- 
ternal influences  so  that  such  differences  as  appear  may  be  legiti- 
mately attributed  to  original  differences  in  mental  constitution. 

The  fundamental  interest  in  the  study  has  been  to  find  out  the 
differences  in  mental  capacity  between  the  two  groups  so  far  as  this 
capacity  is  exercised  in  school  work.  Wliile  the  quantity  actually 
measured  in  the  data  presented  is  scholastic  efficiency,  we  assume 
that,  M^hen  considered  in  the  aggregate,  there  is  a  close  correspond- 
ence between  scholastic  efficiency  and  intellectual  capacity,  so  that 
the  measure  of  one  may  at  the  same  time  be  regarded  as  a  measure 
of  the  other.  A  direct  measurement  of  mental  capacity  is  obviously 
out  of  the  question.  But  the  results  are  not  to  be  regarded  with  less 
confidence  on  this  account ;  for  indirect  measurements  are  of  common 
use  in  physical  as  well  as  in  mental  science. 

Mental  efficiency  then  being  a  function  of  mental  ability,  we 
assume  that,  in  work  so  largely  intellectual  as  that  required  for  the 
pursuit  of  the  studies  of  our  secondary  educational  curricula,  a  dif- 
ference in  scholastic  standing  is  due  in  the  long  run  to  a  difference 
in  general  mental  ability.  We  have  sought  to  determine  by  an  exten- 
sive study  of  the  work  actually  done  in  the  high  school  what  this  dif- 

10 


DATA  AND  METHODS  H 

ference  in  standing  is.  It  ought  to  be  of  value  to  find  out  just  what 
per  cent,  of  a  group  of  colored  pupils,  under  such  conditions  as 
prevail  in  the  high  schools  of  the  City  of  New  York,  will  reach  the 
mean  or  average  attainment  of  a  group  of  white  pupils  in  any  sub- 
ject of  study.  Such  information,  if  reliably  determined,  may  be  of 
service  to  the  educator  and  publicist,  and  should  be  of  interest  to  the 
student  of  psychology  and  anthropology. 

The  study  is  based  upon  a  statistical  treatment  of  school  marks. 
We  are  aware  that  there  may  be  misgivings  regarding  the  reliability 
of  conclusions  derived  from  investigations  based  on  such  data.  The 
significance,  or  lack  of  significance,  of  school  marks,  and  their  arbi- 
trary and  unscientific  character,  are  often  subjects  of  comment  and 
unfavorable  criticism.  It  must  be  admitted  that  most  of  the  objec- 
tions that  can  be  made  against  the  unreliability  of  school  marks  in 
general  apply  in  the  case  of  the  marks  here  considered.  Still  we 
insist  that  a  school  mark  is  not  a  fancy  but  a  real  measure  of  the 
pupil's  ability;  and,  if  carefully  made  out,  it  gives  a  decidedly  more 
reliable  determination  of  the  pupil's  intellectual  capacity  than  would 
a  mere  impression  or  guess.  Of  course  school  marks  are  intended  to 
meet  the  practical  needs  of  instruction  and  educational  administra- 
tion, and  have  no  relation  in  themselves  to  the  interests  or  demands 
of  science. 

Just  what  do  we  mean  by  a  school  mark  ?  The  ratings  of  teachers 
are  generally  made  out  quite  definitely,  as  60,  75,  90.  As  ordinarily 
used,  numbers  like  these  are  obtained  in  the  first  place,  either  from 
counting  individual  objects,  or  from  applying  to  some  quantity  a 
definite  unit  of  measurement.  But  certainly  no  process  of  counting 
is  made  use  of  by  the  teacher  in  obtaining  his  ratings ;  and  obviously 
he  has  no  definite  unit  of  measurement  with  which  to  determine  a 
pupil's  mental  capacity  or  attainment.  When  a  pupil's  mark  in  a 
certain  subject  is  80,  we  do  not  mean,  as  we  do  in  the  case  of  his 
weight  or  height,  that  we  have  applied  some  objective  unit  of  measure 
to  the  pupil's  attainment  in  that  subject,  and  found  thereby  this  meas- 
urement. No  such  units  of  measure  are  here  available.  Wliat  the 
teacher  ordinarily  means,  when  on  some  test  he  gives  the  pupil  a 
rating  of  80,  is  that  the  pupil  has  solved  4  out  of  5  examples,  com- 
posed correctly  8  out  of  10  sentences,  or  written  correctly  16  out  of 
20  words,  no  regard  as  a  rule  being  given  to  their  relative  difficulty. 
Or  it  may  mean  that  the  pupil  has  treated  some  assigned  topic  in 
written  discourse  with  a  fair  degree  of  fullness,  intelligence,  and 
formal  accuracy. 

It  may  be  noted  then  that  school  ratings  are  without  reference  to 
fixed  standards.    We  deliberately  give  equal  credits  for  performances 


12  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBIC  AN  NEGRO 

of  obviously  unequal  difficulty.  We  set  a  paper,  say,  of  five  exercises 
as  a  test  in  some  subject.  The  fourth  exercise  is  distinctly  more  dif- 
ficult than  any  one  of  the  three  preceding,  while  the  fifth  may  require 
a  greater  power  of  thought  than  all  the  others  combined.  Yet  in 
rating  the  pupils  the  exercises  are  often  given  equal  weight.  This 
meets  the  practical  end  of  separating  the  pupils  into  groups  of  poor, 
average,  and  high  attainment,  and  aids  materially  in  carrying  out 
the  work  of  instruction  and  promotion. 

Such  ratings  separate  the  pupils  on  a  basis  of  relative  attainment, 
but  in  no  wise  give  us  the  absolute  differences  between  them.  Ob- 
tained in  the  manner  described,  school  marks  evidently  can  not  be 
treated  as  numbers  ordinarily  are.  We  can  not  say  that  a  pupil 
whose  mark  is  100  is  twice  as  intellectual  as  a  pupil  whose  mark  is 
50,  or  that  he  has  four  thirds  times  the  mental  power  or  attainment 
of  a  pupil  whose  mark  is  75.  "Obviously  school  marks  are  quite 
arbitrary,  and  their  use  at  their  face  value  as  measures  is  entirely 
unjustifiable.  A  90  per  cent,  boy  may  be  four  times  or  three  times 
or  six  fifths  times  as  able  as  an  80  per  cent,  boy."^ 

The  assignment  of  a  school  mark  always  presupposes  some  arbi- 
trarily fixed  scale  which  is  kept  in  mind  by  the  teacher.  Usually  this 
scale  runs  from  0  to  10  or  from  0  to  100.  The  rating  of  a  pupil  con- 
sists in  assigning  him  a  position  somewhere  on  this  scale.  The  rating 
will  vary  more  or  less  with  every  change  of  subject  and  with  every 
change  of  teacher.  This  is  due  in  the  main  to  a  change  in  the  abili- 
ties of  the  pupil,  or  in  his  efforts,  or  in  the  difficulty  of  the  subject, 
or  in  the  standard  of  the  teacher.  These  variations,  however,  would 
never  be  such  as  to  confuse  the  ratings  of  bright,  capable,  and  pains- 
taking pupils  with  those  of  the  dull,  listless,  and  effortless.  The 
latter  will  always  drift  to  the  lower  part  of  the  scale,  while  the  upper 
part  will  be  the  position  occupied  by  the  former.  The  entire  distri- 
bution of  a  school  will  in  general  not  be  far  from  that  of  the  normal 
surface  of  frequency  with  the  average  somewhat  above  the  passing 
mark. 

School  marks  are  measures  of  relative,  and  not  of  absolute,  mental 
attainment  and  ability.  We  can  not  say  that  a  pupil  whose  rating  is 
0  has  absolutely  no  ability,  or  that  a  pupil  whose  rating  is  100  has 
perfect  ability  or  the  highest  possible  ability,  in  that  subject.  Wliat 
we  mean  is  that  in  the  one  case  the  pupil  has  met  none,  or  practically 
none,  of  the  requirements  for  passing  the  subject ;  while  in  the  other 
he  has  met  all  the  requirements  in  a  completely  satisfactory  way. 
To  measure  any  absolute  ability  of  a  pupil  we  would  have  to  obtain  a 
real  0-point  in  that  ability,  a  real  objective  unit  of  the  ability,  and  a 

^Thorndike,  "Mental  and  Social  Measurements,"  p.  7. 


DATA  AND  METHODS  13 

reliable  method  of  measurement.  No  one  of  these  as  yet  is  at  the 
service  of  psychology  or  education. 

With  absolute  measurements,  however,  we  may  suppose  that  the 
distribution  of  individual  pupils  would  be  practically  the  same  as 
that  resulting  from  school  ratings.  Those  that  we  have  judged  to  be 
of  the  highest  ability  would  be  found  at  the  top  of  the  scale,  and 
those  of  the  lowest  ability  at  the  bottom  of  the  scale,  while  those  of 
medium  ability  would  fall  between.  This  statement  of  course  is  a 
mere  assumption.  And  at  present  there  is  no  way  of  testing  its 
validity.  But  there  can  hardly  be  ground  for  doubt  that  our  school 
ratings  are  at  least  approximate  measures  of  attainment,  and  that 
our  school  groupings  of  pupils  as  to  ability  are  roughly  correct. 
Certain  important  exceptions  to  this  contention  have  been  pointed 
out.  Thus  it  has  been  noted  by  numerous  writers  that  that  class  of 
ability  ranked  as  genius  is  not  only  incorrectly,  but  often  fallaciously, 
measured  by  school  standards.  It  must  be  said,  however,  that  school 
standards  measure,  on  an  average,  all-round  ability,  while  the  genius 
may  have  a  decided  bent  in  a  single  direction,  with  marked  defi- 
ciencies in  other  directions.  Moreover  the  quality  that  constitutes 
genius  may  sometimes  be  of  later  development.  The  school  rating 
may  not,  therefore,  be  as  wide  of  the  mark  even  in  this  case  as  is 
often  suspected.  There  may  also  be  a  real  difference  between  the 
attainment  and  capacity  of  pupils  intellectually  bright  but  deficient 
in  energy.  An  absolute  rating  of  their  intellectual  ability  would  fix 
them  at  a  higher  level  than  that  of  their  school  ratings.  Our  school 
ratings  measure  mental  capacities  in  the  lump,  however,  while  abso- 
lute ratings  may  be  assumed  theoretically  to  measure  them  in  isola- 
tion. In  this  case  then,  an  absolute  rating  w^ould  mark  the  pupil  as 
high  in  intellect,  low  in  application,  and  moderate  in  efficiency. 
Here  again  then  we  assume  that  an  average  of  the  different  absolute 
ratings  would  tend  to  approximate  the  rating  of  the  school.  We 
think  it  therefore  safe  to  conclude  that  the  groupings  on  an  absolute 
scale  of  measurement  would  be  at  least  roughly  the  same  as  those  on 
an  arbitrary  scale.  And  the  absolute-scale  marks,  while  far  more 
satisfj'ing  to  the  scientific  taste,  would  probably  be  little  or  no 
more  useful  for  the  practical  purpose  for  which  marks  are  employed 
in  the  present  state  of  educational  administration  than  those  already 
at  our  service. 

We  are  not  able  to  say  then  just  what  the  absolute  difference  in 
ability  is  between  a  high  school  pupil  whose  rating  is  90  and  another 
whose  rating  is  60,  even  when  those  ratings  are  assigned  by  the  most 
capable  and  conscientious  teachers.  But  that  the  one  has  met  the 
requirements  of  the  school  in  a  far  more  successful  way  than  the 

2 


MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBICAN  NEGBO 

other — that  is,  has  been  more  efSeient  in  written  and  oral  recita- 
tions and  very  likely  more  orderly  in  deportment — there  is  no  room 
for  reasonable  doubt.  The  highest  ratings  can  be  secured  only  by 
the  exercise  of  high  intellectual  and  moral  endowments.  We  may 
therefore  confidently  conclude  that  other  things  being  equal,  of  any 
two  pupils  whose  average  ratings  in  school  are  respectively  90  and  60, 
the  former's  general  mental  equipment  is  decidedly  better  than  that 
of  the  latter. 

But  the  whole  difficulty,  one  would  be  apt  to  think,  lies  in  the 
fact  that  other  things  are  never  equal.  Herein,  however,  consists  the 
exact  value  of  statistical  treatment.  It  is  a  primary  principle  of  sta- 
tistical science  that  all  random  irregularities  that  hopelessly  disturb 
and  confuse  individual  cases  tend  to  equalize  and  rectify  themselves 
when  treated  in  the  aggregate.  Differences  which  arise  between  large 
groups  of  individuals,  when  treated  in  this  manner,  are  fundamental 
and  real.  They  must  be  regarded  as  inherent  in  the  nature  of  the 
thing  treated  and  not  in  matters  of  chance. 

"With  other  ends  in  view,  several  statistical  studies  of  school 
marks  have  already  been  made  with  results  of  value  to  psychology 
and  education.  The  rather  elaborate  system  of  records  kept  in  the 
high  schools  of  the  City  of  Greater  New  York  suggested  the  prac- 
ticability of  the  present  study.  The  large  number  of  items  recorded 
lend  themselves  readily  to  statistical  treatment.  If  we  wish  to  con- 
sider the  work  of  any  two  groups  of  pupils  for  a  determination  of 
their  likenesses  or  differences,  our  chief  concern  at  first  is  the  selec- 
tion of  such  cases  as  will  be  fairly  typical  of  the  groups,  and  then  to 
make  the  number  of  cases  selected  large  enough  for  chance  varia- 
tions within  the  groups  to  counterbalance  each  other.  When  we 
have  obtained  the  records  of  a  sufficient  number  of  cases,  we  have 
only  to  tabulate  and  compare  the  data  recorded,  in  order  to  ascer- 
tain the  relative  standing  of  the  groups  with  reference  to  any  matter 
of  interest.  Whatever  differences  there  may  be  between  the  groups 
will  be  at  once  manifest,  and  in  a  numerical  form.  If  one  group 
surpasses  the  other  in  any  respect,  the  fact  is  apparent  on  the  face  of 
the  data;  and  if  the  number  of  cases  is  great  enough  to  render  the 
selection  sufficiently  representative,  then  we  may  with  some  assur- 
ance make  out,  not  only  the  fact  of  difference,  but  also  an  approxima- 
tion to  its  exact  measurement. 

Among  the  items  recorded  are  the  dates  of  birth  of  the  pupil  and 
of  his  entrance  to  the  high  school,  a  record  of  attendance  with  the 
days  of  absence  and  the  times  of  tardiness,  and,  as  a  rule,  four  marks 
in  each  subject  for  each  term  of  five  months — a  set  of  two  marks,  one 
based  on  the  daily  class-room  record  and  one  on  a  final  examination 


I* 
DATA  AND  METHODS  15 

being  made  for  each  quarter.  Sometimes  all  the  marks  are  averaged 
and  a  single  mark  is  recorded  for  the  term.  The  pupil,  as  a  rule,  is 
graded  by  one  or  more  different  teachers  in  each  subject.  The  marks 
are  recorded  in  per  cents.     The  passing  mark  is  60. 

Great  care  was  exercised  in  the  selection  of  cases,  as  the  signifi- 
cance and  the  reliability  of  the  study  were  so  largely  dependent  upon 
this  factor.  All  records  which  have  been  considered  were  taken 
from  niixed  schools  in  order  that  the  measurements  of  pupils  might 
be  obtained  in  terms  of  a  single  standard.  To  compare  the  records 
of  pupils  in  colored  high  schools  with  those  in  high  schools  for  whites 
would  at  once  involve  us  in  the  difficulty  of  two  more  or  less  differ- 
ent standards  of  scholarship  without  any  known  or  easily  ascertain- 
able common  measure.  This  difficulty  was  obviated  by  selecting 
cases  from  mixed  schools  only.  From  any  one  school  the  same  num- 
ber of  cases  was  selected  for  each  group.  Whatever  standards  were 
applied,  then,  in  the  testing  or  measuring  of  one  group  were  applied 
also  in  the  case  of  the  other. 

As  to  the  colored  pupils,  every  individual  was  considered  whose 
name  and  record  could  be  obtained.  By  colored  pupils  are  meant 
such  as  are  reported  by  teachers  as  "colored"  and  doubtless  only 
those  are  included  who  were  obviously  possessed  of  a  considerable 
degree  of  negro  blood.  As  race  or  nationality  is  not  indicated  on 
the  record  card,  it  was  found  difficult  to  get  the  names  of  colored 
pupils  except  such  as  were  actually  in  attendance  at  school.  In  two 
large  high  schools  a  fairly  complete  list  of  all  the  colored  pupils  who 
entered  during  the  years  1906-1909  inclusive  was  secured.  Hence, 
in  the  case  of  the  colored  pupils,  the  whole  group  has  been  studied  so 
far  as  it  could  be  obtained. 

In  choosing  white  pupils  for  comparison,  the  rule  for  random  se- 
lection was  at  all  times  carefully  observed.  Several  different  nation- 
alities were  included  in  the  study,  among  them,  notably,  English, 
Germans,  Irish,  Italians,  and  Jews.  The  selection  of  cases  from 
groups  of  pupils  who  had  been  put  together  in  classes  on  the  basis 
of  good  or  poor  scholarship  was  consistently  avoided.  An  effort  was 
made  to  pair  the  individuals  of  each  group  at  random  on  entering 
high  school ;  that  is,  if  six  colored  pupils  entered  any  high  school 
at  the  opening  of  any  term  among  a  whole  entering  class,  of,  say, 
400  pupils,  then  out  of  the  394  whites,  six  were  selected  at  random, 
and  the  subsequent  records  of  attendance  and  scholarship  of  the  two 
groups  were  followed  up  and  compared.  This  method  had  certain 
advantages,  and  was  employed  as  far  as  practicable.  In  particular, 
if  carried  out,  it  would  have  shown  which  of  the  two  groups  tended 
to  remain  in  school  the  longer,  and  which  one  of  a  colored  and  white 


16  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEGBO 

pair  would  be  the  more  likely  to  graduate  from  the  high  school. 
Also  following  up  the  progress  of  the  pupils  from  the  time  of  en- 
trance, it  is  obvious  that  this  method  would  give  the  most  satisfactory 
and  reliable  comparative  result. 

But  the  selection  of  cases  by  this  method  was  not  always  prac- 
ticable. The  necessary  records  at  times  could  not  be  easily  secured. 
A  second  method  of  selecting  white  cases  was  then  employed.  As  the 
colored  pupils  were  practically  ahvays  in  actual  attendance  at  school, 
white  cases  were  selected  at  random  from  the  current  directory,  care 
being  taken  to  pair  pupils  only  who  had  been  in  school  the  same 
length  of  time.  If  the  record  of  a  colored  pupil  who  had  been  dis- 
charged or  graduated  was  obtained,  a  chance  selection  of  a  record 
was  made  from  the  corresponding  group  of  white  pupils.  This 
method  of  selection  tends  of  course  to  make  the  record  of  attendance 
of  the  two  groups  the  same,  and  interferes  with  the  problem  of 
determining  which  group  has  the  tendency  to  remain  longer  in  the 
high  school. 

There  is  a  popular  belief  that  mulattoes  are  more  successful  in 
learning  than  colored  pupils  of  the  pure  negro  type.  It  would  then 
have  been  a  matter  of  interest  to  separate  the  colored  pupils  into 
subgroups  on  the  basis  of  the  degree  of  race  mixture,  and  to  note 
their  relative  class  standing ;  but  judgments  of  this  sort  were  so 
difficult  to  obtain  and  so  often  appeared  to  be  of  doubtful  value  that 
the  effort  to  attain  this  result  was  abandoned. 

Another  question  bearing  an  important  relation  to  the  study  is  the 
degree  to  w^hich  the  white  and  the  colored  high  school  pupils  respec- 
tively represent  the  same  proportionate  selection  from  the  adolescent 
population  of  the  two  races.  We  are  not  able  to  determine  this  pre- 
cisely but  statistical  data  go  to  show  that  the  selection  is  much  closer 
for  the  colored  than  for  the  white  race.  The  colored  population  of 
the  state  of  New  York  according  to  the  census  of  1910  is  about  1.5 
per  cent,  of  the  entire  population;  while  according  to  the  reports  of 
the  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education  the  colored  high  school 
enrollment  for  the  state  of  New  York  was  .36  per  cent,  of  the  total 
enrollment  in  1907 ;  .38  per  cent,  in  1908 ;  and  .14  per  cent,  in  1909. 
This  would  show  that  in  proportion  to  the  population  about  four 
times  as  many  whites  as  colored  are  enrolled  in  the  high  schools. 

While  the  colored  high  school  pupils  thus  represent  a  closer  selec- 
tion from  the  entire  population  than  do  the  whites  in  the  ratio  of 
about  four  to  one,  we  do  not  know  upon  what  basis  this  selection  is 
made.  It  is  probably  upon  a  mixed  basis  of  intellectual  ability  and 
social  standing.  If  the  selection  were  made  solely  upon  the  basis  of 
intellectual  ability,  the  closer  selection  of  a  group  would  naturally 


DATA  AND  METHODS  17 

accrue  to  its  advantage  in  a  comparative  study  like  this.  And  if  the 
social  standing  of  the  family  in  the  community  were  taken  as  a  basis, 
the  result  of  selection  would  probably  be  largely  the  same.  There 
can  be  little  doubt  that  mental  ability  and  material  prosperity  will 
be  found  to  be  associated  together  in  a  very  large  degree. 


CHAPTER  III 

COMPAEATIVE  AgES  AND  TiME  OF  ATTENDANCE 

The  average  age  of  the  pupils  of  the  two  groups  on  entering  high 
school  is  of  importance  because  of  its  bearing  on  their  progress 
through  the  grades;  and  their  average  time  of  attendance,  because 
of  its  relation  to  their  continuance  in  school.  A  determination  of 
these  will  serve  to  throw  statistical  light  on  the  problems  of  "retar- 
dation" and  of  student  "mortality." 

TABLE    I 
Showing  Ages  of  Pupils  on  Entering  High  School 


Years 

No.  Whites 

No, 

,  Colored 

12.25 

3 

1 

12.50 

1 

2 

12.75 

5 

4 

13.00 

4 

2 

13.25 

11 

9 

13.50 

7 

7 

13.75 

13 

6 

14.00 

13 

11 

14.25 

15 

8 

14.50 

21 

15 

14.75 

12 

7 

15.00 

14 

9 

15.25 

11 

12 

15.50 

6 

11 

15.75 

2 

7 

16.00 

5 

•• 

7 

16.25 

1 

5 

16.50 

1 

3 

16.75 

3 

2 

17.00 

1 

7 

17.25 

0 

2 

17.50 

0 

3 

17.75 

0 

3 

18.00 

0 

1 

18.25 

0 

0 

18.50 

0 

1 

18.75 

0 

0 

19.00 

0 

1 

19.25 

1 

4 

The 

average   age 

of   whites 

is 

14   years   5 

months ; 

of  colored,   15   years 

2  months, 

,     The  med 

ian 

I  age  of  whites  is  14 

years 

6  months 

;  of  colored,  15  years 

1  month. 

The  A.D. 

of  whites  is 

9  months; 

of  colored, 

15  months. 

18 

COMPABATIFE  AGES  AND  TIME  OF  ATTENDANCE 


19 


The  ages  of  the  pupils  on  entering  high  school  are  shown  in  Table 
I.  The  average  age  of  the  white  pupils  is  14  years  5  months ;  of  the 
colored,  15  years  2  months — a  difference  of  nine  months.  On  account 
of  the  undue  influence  of  a  few  cases  of  colored  pupils  who  were  un- 
usually late  in  entering  high  school,  the  median  may  be  considered 
a  better  comparative  measure  for  the  age  of  entrance.  The  median 
age  of  the  whites  is  14  years  6  months;  of  the  colored  15  years  1 
month — a  difference  of  seven  months. 


30 


20 


10 


r-"i 

1 

_-- 
■ 

1 
1 

1 

1 

I 

!    !..- 

1 

r"*i 

l_    !-.- 

1    1 

12  13    14    15     16    17    18     19 

Fig.  1^     Showing  the  Distribution  of  Pupils  by  Age.      (See  Table  I.) 


In  either  case  the  colored  pupils  on  entering  high  school  have,  on 
the  whole,  more  than  half  a  year's  age  in  advance  of  the  whites. 
This  can  be  due  only  to  a  later  entrance  into  the  elementary  school,  or 
to  retardation  in  the  grades,  or  to  a  temporary  delay  after  gradua- 
tion from  grammar  school  before  entering  the  high  school.  In  view 
of  the  compulsory  education  law,  which  would  tend  to  equalize  the 
ages  of  all  pupils  on  entering  the  elementary  school,  and  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  there  would  be  no  probable  reason  for  a  temporary  dis- 
continuance of  school  life  at  the  close  of  the  grammar  school  period 
except  in  accidental  cases,  retardation  in  the  grades  seems  to  be  the 
only  likely  explanation.  If  this  is  found  to  be  true,  it  will  mean 
that  it  requires  the  colored  pupils  on  the  whole  from  one  to  two  terms 
longer  than  the  white  to  complete  the  elementary  school  course — a 
matter  of  considerable  significance  from  the  point  of  view  of  teach- 
ing as  well  as  from  that  of  educational  expenditure. 

^  The  solid  line  indicates  the  distribution  of  the  white  pupils,  the  broken  line 
the  colored. 


20 


MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEGEO 


TABLE    II 
Showing  the  Distribution  of  Pupils  According  to  the  Term  of  Attendance 

From  all  Schools 

Term                                                                            White  Colored 

First    29  23 

Second    31  20 

Third    20  21 

Fourth    20  18 

Fifth     6  11 

Sixth     7  9 

Seventh     14  17 

Eighth    13  9 

Ninth    5  7 

Tenth    4  9 

Eleventh     0  2 

Twelfth    0  2 

Thirteenth    0  1 

The  average  time  for  all  whites  is  3.8  terms;  all  colored,  4.5  terms. 
Note. — For  pupils  in  school  the  ordinals  at  the  left  show  the  term  of  attend- 
ance;  for  discharged  pupils,  the  term  of  attendance  when  discharged. 


The  records  show  also  that  colored  pupils  remain  in  the  high 
school  a  greater  length  of  time  than  do  the  whites.  The  facts  are 
indicated  in  Table  II.     The  average  time  spent  in  school,  or  rather 

30  _ 


20 


10 


>- 


0  12  3  4  6  6 

Fig.  2.     Showing  the  Distribution  of  Pupils  by  the  Number  of  Years  of  At- 
tendance.    (See  Table  II.) 


that  had  been  spent  in  school  when  the  records  were  taken,  was  for 
149  colored  pupils  4.5  terms,  and  for  149  white  pupils  3.8  terms. 
This  would  tend  to  indicate  that  colored  pupils  remain  in  the  high 
school  for  a  considerably  longer  period  than  the  whites.     On  account 


COMF AMATIVE  AGES  AND  TIME  OF  ATTENDANCE  21 

of  the  large  numbers  of  both  groups  who  early  close  their  high  school 
career,  it  does  not  necessarily  have  any  very  close  connection  with 
the  average  time  required  by  each  group  for  completing  the  course 
of  study.  It  mainly  points  to  the  conclusion  that  for  some  or  various 
reasons,  white  pupils  are  more  prone  to  quit  the  high  school  than  are 
the  colored. 

The  selection  of  cases  by  the  second  method  was  such  as  not  to 
enable  us  to  determine  the  relative  time  spent  in  school.  The  pupils 
studied  being  taken  from  the  current  enrollments  and  paired  accord- 
ing to  date  of  entrance,  as  has  already  been  explained,  the  two  groups 
are  put  on  practically  the  same  basis  in  point  of  time  of  attendance. 
This  selection  obviously  tends  to  neutralize  any  differences  of  this 
sort  that  might  exist  between  the  groups.  It  also  tends  to  make 
the  obtained  time  greater  than  the  actual  time  of  attendance  for  each 
group.  For  the  colored  pupils  selected,  being  those  in  actual  attend- 
ance at  the  time,  represent  only  the  survivors  of  the  whole  entering 
group,  and  their  average  time  of  attendance  is  naturally  greater  than 
the  average  for  the  entire  group.  The  same  observation  holds  of 
course  for  the  whites  who  were  selected  for  comparison.  For  the 
pupils  studied,  about  28  per  cent,  of  the  whites  attained  the  average 
time  of  attendance  for  the  colored.  About  12  per  cent,  of  the  whites 
and  18  per  cent,  of  the  colored  remained  in  school  eight  terms  or 
more.  This  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  probabilities  of  remain- 
ing in  high  school  long  enough  to  complete  the  course  are  consider- 
ably greater  for  the  colored  pupil  than  for  the  white.  But  the 
number  of  cases  is  so  small  as  to  give  no  great  reliability  to  the  last 
mentioned  estimate. 

We  have  found  that  colored  pupils  are,  on  an  average,  from  7  to 
9  months  older  than  white  pupils  on  entering  the  high  school.  To 
just  what  extent  this  retardation  in  the  grades  exists  in  the  New 
York  City  and  other  city  schools  could  be  determined  only  by  a  spe- 
cial study  of  the  subject.  The  time  will  probably  come  when  fuller 
statistical  light  will  be  sought  on  such  problems  for  the  better  guid- 
ance of  educational  administration.  There  are  considerations  and 
available  statistical  data,  however,  which  tend  to  show  that  it  is,  on 
the  whole,  probably  more  pronounced  than  is  here  indicated. 

The  law  requires  children  in  New  York  City  under  16  years  of 
age  to  be  in  attendance  at  school.  Children  under  this  age  can  not 
be  legally  employed  unless  they  first  obtain  work  certificates  from 
the  Board  of  Health.  To  be  eligible  to  receive  a  work  certificate,  the 
child,  among  other  things,  must  have  attended  school  for  130  days 
after  his  thirteenth  birthday.  In  accordance  with  this  provision  of 
the  law,  a  pupil  may  drop  out  of  school  and  seek  employment  while 


22  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBIC  AN  NEGEO 

yet  in  the  grades.  This  is  a  matter  of  common  occurrence.  It 
applies  for  the  most  part  to  backward  pupils.  We  have  no  direct 
data  showing  that  it  is  true  to  a  greater  extent  of  colored  pupils  than 
of  whites.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  this  is  the  case;  and  if  so, 
the  actual  measure  of  retardation  would  be  greater  than  that  which 
we  have  obtained. 

The  school  reports  of  cities  having  a  considerable  colored  popula- 
tion often  contain  data  bearing  on  the  problems  of  retardation  and 
school  attendance.  In  the  cities  of  the  Northern  States,  however, 
where  separate  schools  for  colored  pupils  are  not  maintained,  and 
where  the  race  of  the  pupils  is  not  indicated  on  the  school  record,  no 
data  pertaining  to  these  topics  are  published.  Separate  school  sys- 
tems are  maintained  in  all  the  Southern  States,  and  school  reports 
contain  an  abundance  of  material  relating  to  the  education  of  the 
races.  The  colored  schools  as  a  rule,  however,  are  less  adequate  in 
organization  and  equipment,  and  in  the  training  and  number  of 
teachers.  The  standards  of  education  must  therefore  vary  much, 
even  when  serious  effort  is  put  forth  to  make  them  the  same.  It  may 
well  be,  then,  that  conclusions  drawn  from  a  comparative  treatment 
of  the  data  published  in  these  reports  will  have  to  be  subjected  to 
more  or  less  revision;  but  they  point  to  certain  general  tendencies 
which  seem  to  be  clearly  defined  and  may  prove  to  be  fundamental. 
In  the  Kansas  City  (Missouri)  report  for  1910,  Tables  III.  A 
(White)  and  III.  A  (Colored)  show  the  number  of  pupils  finishing 
each  grade  wdth  the  time  required  for  its  completion.  There  were 
11,594  white  pupils  finishing  grades,  and  1,557  colored.  We  have 
calculated  the  time  required  as  shown  in  the  annexed  table. 

TABLE    III 

Grades                                     I  II  III  IV  V  VI  VII  Total 

Av.  No.  Yrs.  for  whites 1.19  1.12  1.14  1.14  1.05  1.17  1.08  7.89 

Av.  No.  Yrs.  for  colored    1.24  1.21  1.19  1.14  1.27  1.12  1.24  8.41 

Difference    05  .09  .05  .00  .22  .05  .16  .52 

The  number  for  the  first  two  time-intervals  in  the  tables  of  the 
Report  were  undistributed.  So  we  used  the  numbers  given  as  be- 
longing to  the  first  interval  only.  The  average  time  required  for 
colored  pupils  to  complete  a  grade  is  somewhat  greater  in  each  in- 
stance than  that  required  for  the  white,  except  in  the  fourth  grade, 
where  it  is  the  same,  and  in  the  sixth,  where  it  is  less.  On  the  whole, 
it  requires  about  half  a  year  longer  for  colored  pupils  to  pass  through 
the  grades. 

In  the  same  report  we  find  that  the  median  age  for  1,617  w^hites 
when  they  are  supposed  to  enter  the  high  school  to  be  14  years  11 


COMPARATIVE  AGES  AND  TIME  OF  ATTENDANCE  23 

months;  and  for  132  colored  pupils,  15  years  4  months — a  difference 
of  5  months. 

From  the  St.  Louis  report  for  1910,  we  take  the  two  tables  here 
given. 

TABLE    IV 

Average  Age  of  Pupils  Beginning  Kindergj\jiten  and  First  Grade 

White  Colored  Difference  Normal  Age 

Kindergarten    6.24  6.33  .09  6.00 

First  grade   7.26  7.49  .23  7.00 

TABLE    V 

Average  Age  of  Pupils  Completing  Kindergarten  and  Grades 

White  Colored  Difference  Normal  Age 

Kindergarten    7.00                     7.13  .13  7.00 

First  grade 8.39                      8.95  .56  8.00 

Second  grade   9.58  10.11  .53  9.00 

Third   grade    10.61  11.26  .65  10.00 

Fourth   grade    11.75  12.29  .54  11.00 

Fifth  grade     12.58  13.01  .43  12.00 

Sixth  grade 13.29  14.46  1.17  13.00 

Seventh  grade 13.98  14.89  .91  14.00 

Eighth  grade    14.79  15.61  .82  15.00 

These  tables  indicate  that  the  colored  pupils  are  a  little,  but  not 
much,  older  than  the  white  pupils  on  entering  the  kindergarten. 
The  difference  in  age  is  somewhat  greater  on  entering  the  first  grade 
— the  average  difference  being  from  two  to  three  months.  At  the 
time  of  completing  the  first  grade,  the  average  difference  in  age  is 
more  than  half  a  year,  which  seems  to  indicate  a  considerable  retar- 
dation of  the  colored  pupils  in  the  first  grade.  After  the  first  grade, 
the  difference  in  average  ages  does  not  vary  a  great  deal  until  the 
sixth  grade  is  reached,  when  according  to  the  figures  of  the  table,  the 
difference  suddenly  rises  to  a  maximum.  The  difference  in  average 
ages  at  the  completion  of  the  eighth  grade  is  approximately  10 
months — about  7  of  which  are  due  to  retardation  in  the  grades,  espe- 
cially the  first  and  the  sixth.  The  difference  in  average  ages  between 
the  pupils,  both  colored  and  white,  completing  any  two  successive 
grades  is  more  than  a  year  in  every  instance  until  the  fifth  grade  is 
reached.  At  this  point  it  becomes  less  than  a  year,  which  would 
probably  indicate  a  heavy  withdrawal  of  the  backward  pupils  from 
school  in  the  fifth  and  succeeding  grades. 

The  report  of  the  Memphis  (Tenn.)  public  schools  for  the  school 
year  of  1908-1909  gives  the  average  ages  of  the  white  and  the 
colored  pupils  in  the  various  grades.     (See  page  24.) 


24  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBIC  AN  NEGEO 

TABLE    VI 

Average  Age  op  White  and  Colored  Pupils  in  the  Several  Grades 

OF  the  Memphis  Public  Schools 

Grade                                                    Av.  Age  of  Whites    Av.  Age  of  Colored  Difference 

First     7.04                         8.2  1,2 

Second     8.7                        10.4  1.7 

TMrd     10.0                         11.6  1.6 

Fourth     11.1                          12.4  1.3 

Fifth    12.0                          13.3  1.3 

Sixth    12.8                        14.1  1.3 

Seventh     13.8                        14.9  1.1 

Eighth     14.6                        15.7  1.1 

This  distribution  by  ages  is  made  out  for  8,500  white  pupils,  and 
5,180  colored.  Ketardation  seems  to  occur  here  mainly  in  the  first 
and  second  grades.  This  is  further  emphasized  by  the  fact  that 
61  per  cent,  of  the  colored  pupils  are  found  in  these  two  grades  as 
compared  with  36  per  cent,  of  the  whites. 

From  the  annual  report  of  the  St.  Louis  public  schools  for  1909 
(Table  C,  page  50)  we  take  the  distribution  of  pupils  by  ages  in  the 
high  schools. 

TABLE    VII 
Distribution  of  Pupils  by  Ages  in  the  St.  Louis  High  School,  June  1,  1909 

Years     12  13  14  15  16  17  18    19  &  over    Total 

Whites     2  35         268         826         954         969         703         418         4,175 

Colored    0  1  9  44  78  75  94  93  394 

The  average  age  of  white  high  school  pupils  here  is  17  years;  of  col- 
ored, 17  years  10  months.  Of  the  whites  about  27  per  cent.,  and  of 
the  colored  47  per  cent.,  are  18  years  old  or  older.  Of  the  colored 
pupils  nearly  24  per  cent,  are  19  years  old  or  older,  as  compared  with 
10  per  cent,  of  the  whites.  In  the  same  table  (Table  C)  it  is  shown 
that  more  than  5  per  cent,  of  the  colored  and  less  than  2  per  cent, 
of  the  whites,  who  are  still  in  the  grades,  are  16  years  old  or  older. 
Of  572  white  pupils  in  the  West  Port  high  school,  Kansas  City,  in 
1907,  no  one  was  over  20  years  of  age ;  while  of  310  colored  pupils  in 
the  Lincoln  high  school,  eighteen  w^ere  over  20  years  of  age. 

There  is  a  decided  agreement  betw^een  these  various  school  reports 
and  the  data  we  have  collected.  Our  own  table  shows  that  the  great 
body  of  white  pupils  enter  the  high  school  between  the  ages  of  13  and 
15.5  years;  while  the  colored  pupils  enter  in  large  numbers  between 
the  ages  of  13  and  16.5  years.  Four  per  cent,  of  the  white  and  25, 
per  cent,  of  the  colored  pupils  enter  after  the  seventeenth  birthday. 
Twenty-seven  per  cent,  of  the  whites  are  as  old  as  the  median  age  of 
the  colored.     The  whites  are  more  regular  in  age  on  entering  the 


COMPARATirE  AGES  AND  TIME  OF  ATTENDANCE  25 

high  school.  The  average  deviation  in  age  for  whites  is  9  months; 
for  colored,  15  months. 

The  data  presented  seem  to  justify  two  important  conclusions. 
First,  the  colored  pupils,  on  an  average,  suffer  a  considera])ly  greater 
retardation  in  the  grades,  and  are  more  advanced  in  age  on  entering 
the  high  school.  Second,  the  white  pupils  are  subjected  to  a  greater 
mortality  or  to  an  earlier  discontinuance  of  high  school  than  the 
colored.  Relative  retardation  and  persistence  in  school  would  seem 
to  be  characteristic  of  the  high  school  colored  group. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  the  reason  for  the  difference  in 
the  time  of  attendance  of  the  two  groups.  There  are  likely  a  num- 
ber of  considerations  each  contributing  in  a  measure  to  it.  The 
cause  may  be  for  the  greater  part  economic  and  social.  There  is  a 
considerably  wider  field  of  opportunity  open  to  white  high  school 
pupils  for  securing  employment,  and  on  this  account  they  may  be 
tempted  to  leave  school  even  to  an  extent  out  of  proportion  to  their 
much  greater  numbers.  Also  a  relatively  much  smaller  per  cent, 
of  the  colored  school  population  is  enrolled  in  school  than  the  white. 
It  is  therefore  possible  that  the  pupils  of  the  colored  group  are 
selected  from  families  in  a  better  economic  condition  than  the  average 
white  family,  and  hence  there  may  be  less  need  for  the  help  of  the 
children  in  maintaining  the  home.  It  is  also  possible  that  the  negro 
parent,  in  many  cases,  has  an  even  greater  faith  in  the  advantages 
which  an  education  gives  to  his  children,  and  that  he  is  consequently 
the  more  self-sacrificing  in  his  efforts  to  keep  them  in  school.  The 
-cause  may  also  lie  partly  in  the  different  mental  constitution  of  the 
groups.  The  negro  pupil  probably  has  greater  patience  than  the 
white  when  making  little  or  no  progress  in  his  studies;  he  may  also 
he  less  sensitive  to  failure  and  ridicule ;  and  he  may  therefore  be 
less  likely  to  withdraw  from  school  on  account  of  discouragement. 
It  may  be  that  the  initiative  and  enterprise  of  the  white  pupil  cause 
him  to  grow  restless  in  school  and  long  for  more  active  work,  or  a 
greater  desire  to  earn  money  may  induce  him  earlier  to  seek  employ- 
ment. However  we  may  account  for  it,  the  records  seem  to  indicate 
clearly  that  colored  pupils  once  in  the  high  school  tend  to  remain 
longer  than  the  whites.  According  to  the  records  obtained,  of  a 
hundred  pupils  of  each  group  having  entered  high  school  at  any 
time,  when  50  per  cent,  of  the  colored  pupils  are  still  in  attendance, 
only  28  per  cent,  of  the  whites  will  remain. 


CHAPTER     IV 

Comparative  Scholastic  Efficiency 

Of  more  importance  than  matters  of  age  or  attendance  is  the  suc- 
cess of  the  pupil  in  school.  The  relative  scholastic  success  or  effi- 
ciency of  the  white  and  the  colored  high  school  pupils  was  the  topic 
of  central  interest  in  pursuing  the  investigation.  The  comparative 
scholastic  records  of  the  two  groups  are  shown  in  Tables  VIII.- 
XXII. 

Table  VIII.  summarizes  the  results  of  the  work  of  all  pupils  of 
each  group  for  the  whole  period  of  time  spent  in  school  in  the  fol- 
lovsdng  subjects :  English,  modern  languages,  ancient  languages, 
mathematics,  science,  history,  and  the  commercial  branches.  One 
mark  is  here  given  for  each  pupil.  This  mark  is  obtained  by  scoring 
all  the  different  scholarship  marks  set  down  on  the  pupil's  record 
card  and  determining  their  median.  "When  any  subject  is  repeated, 
however,  the  marks  made  on  a  second  or  later  trial  are  not  considered. 
The  number  of  marks  from  which  the  medians  are  obtained  varied 
greatly  according  to  the  length  of  time  the  pupil  had  been  in  school, 
as  well  as  in  accordance  with  the  course  of  study  pursued,  and  the 
number  of  marks  required  to  be  put  on  record  in  the  different  high 
schools.  The  average  number  of  marks  from  which  each  median  was 
obtained  was  60  or  more — which  means  that  the  median  measure  here 
given  is  about  the  average  of  some  sixty  different  measures  of  a 
pupil's  achievement.  All  these  measures  were  in  turn  averages  of  a 
series  of  individual  measures  previously  made  in  class  recitations  or 
tests. 

Table  VIII.,  then,  is  a  general  table,  embodying  in  a  condensed 
form  all  the  facts  of  the  other  tables  on  the  scholastic  standing  of  the 
two  groups.  It  represents  in  a  general  way  the  comparative  average 
attainment  of  white  and  colored  pupils  in  the  high  schools  of  the 
City  of  New  York ;  and  presumably  like  results  would  be  obtained  in 
other  cities  where  similar  conditions  prevail. 

To  determine  the  relative  standing  of  the  two  groups,  we  first  set 
down  the  median  marks  of  the  individual  pupil  as  given  in  Table 
VIII.  and  reckon  in  turn  their  median.  This  final  result  gives  a 
measure  of  what  each  group  as  a  whole  has  attained  in  scholarship, 
and  may  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  all-round  measure  of  comparative 
mental  ability  as  applied  in  school  studies. 

26 


COMPARATIVE  SCHOLASTIC  EFFICIENCY 


27 


TABLE   VIII 

Median  Marks  in  All  Subjects  for  All  Terms,  First  Trial 

Measures  Whites  Coloitd 

Below  20   0  0 

20-24  0  1 

25-29   0  0 

30-34   1  0 

35-39   1  0 

40-44   3  5 

45-49   0  3 

50-54   8  16 

55-59   9  23 

60-64   46  49 

65-69   29  34 

70-74   29  4 

75-79   7  6 

80-84   8  4 

85-89   1  1 

90-100   3  1 

50 

r"" 
I     I 


30 


10 


C1Z2 C 


o 


so         30  40         60  60  70  80  90 

Fig.  3-.     Showing  the  Eelative  Attainment  of  the  Two  Groups  in   all   Studies. 

(See  Table  VIII.) 

^  The  horizontal  row  of  numbers  indicates  the  marks  obtained  by  pupils  on 
the  scale  0-100;  the  vertical  row  indicates  the  number  of  pupils  obtaining  the 
various  marks. 


28  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEGEO 

The  median  mark  of  the  150  cases  of  white  pupils  in  all  subjects 
combined  is  66  ;  and  of  the  150  cases  of  colored  pupils  62,  a  difference 
of  4  points,  or  4  per  cent. 

One  might  have  expected  a  higher  average  standing  for  either 
group  than  the  one  here  attained.  The  artificial  effect  of  the  passing 
mark  of  60  is  obvious.  There  is  a  decided  crowding  of  the  pupils  in 
the  60 's.  There  are  several  easily  assignable  reasons  for  this.  Here 
will  naturally  be  found  the  great  body  of  those  pupils  to  whom  pass- 
ing a  subject  is  a  spur  to  industry,  but  in  whom  the  joy  of  making 
an  excellent  record  or  the  duty  of  doing  one's  best  fails  to  excite  the 
highest  endeavor.  Here  also  fall  many  plodders  whose  steady  efforts 
obtain  for  them  the  prize  of  promotion.  The  spur  of  the  teacher  also 
holds  some  up  to  the  passing  mark  who  would  otherwise  fail ;  and  her 
final  efforts,  especially  when  promotion  is  decided  by  an  examination 
at  the  close  of  the  term,  are  given  most  assiduously,  not  to 'those 
pupils  who  are  certain  of  passing  or  certain  of  failing,  but  to  those 
whose  standing  is  still  a  matter  of  doubt.  We  judge,  therefore,  that 
whatever  the  passing  mark  is  made,  so  long  as  the  requirements  are 
such  that  the  average  pupil  can  with  reasonable  effort  meet  them, 
the  distribution  of  the  cases  will  not  be  essentially  different  from 
what  it  is  here.  The  central  position  or  tendency  of  the  white  group 
is  6  points  above  the  passing  mark;  for  the  colored  group,  2.  This 
fact  would  indicate  that  promotion  is,  as  a  rule,  considerably  more 
doubtful  of  attainment  for  pupils  of  the  colored  group. 

A  reference  to  the  table  shows  that  44  cases,  or  29  per  cent.,  of 
the  colored  pupils  reach  or  surpass  the  median  mark  for  white 
pupils ;  that  is,  29  out  of  a  hundred  colored  pupils  would  get  as  high 
a  rating  in  school  studies  as  50  out  of  a  hundred  white  pupils ;  or, 
w^hat  comes  to  the  same  thing,  the  29  highest  of  a  hundred  colored 
pupils  will  outrank  the  lowest  50  of  the  whites.  Corresponding  to 
these  50  lowest  cases  of  whites  would  be  71  cases  of  the  colored  group. 
One  hundred  and  nine  cases,  or  73  per  cent.,  of  the  white  group  reach 
the  median  mark  of  the  colored  group. 

The  middle  50  per  cent,  of  white  pupils  range  in  their  marks  from 
61  to  72,  inclusive;, the  middle  50  per  cent,  of  colored,  from  57  to  67, 
inclusive.  The  variation  of  the  white  group  is  slightly  greater  than 
that  of  the  colored  group,  the  average  deviation  being  in  the  one  case 
7,  in  the  other  6.5.  The  median  deviation  probable  error  for  the 
white  group  is  5.5 ;  that  for  the  colored  group,  5. 

The  colored  pupils  being  largely  made  up  of  crossings  between 
races,  one  might  naturally  have  expected  a  wider  degree  of  variabil- 
ity to  have  appeared  in  the  scholastic  attainments  of  this  group.  It 
would  seem  natural  to  expect  that  race  mixture  would  tend  to  in- 


{ 

V 


r.     *^* 


COMPABATIVE  SCHOLASTIC  EFFICIENCY  29 

crease  the  variability  of  the  offspring.  There  are  indications,  how- 
ever, that  the  negro  as  a  race  is  somewhat  less  variable  in  hereditary 
endowments  than  is  the  white  race.  It  may  be  that  the  variability 
of  the  former  lies  entirely  within  the  limits  of  the  variability  of  the 
latter.  In  such  case,  the  increased  variability  of  one  group  might 
still  be  less  than  the  natural  variability  of  the  other.  The  extremes 
of  scholastic  variation  as  here  presented  reach  about  the  same  limits. 
That  the  average  deviation  or  variability  of  the  colored  pupils  is 
somewhat  less  may  probably  be  due  in  part  to  their  more  compact 
grouping  about  the  passing  mark. 

It  may  be  observed  that  the  general  impression  among  teachers  is 
that  colored  pupils  are  less  successful  in  their  studies  than  are  the 
whites.  Hence  a  greater  difference  in  the  average  standing  or  cen- 
tral tendency  of  the  two  groups  might  have  been  anticipated.  A  dif-"? 
ference  of  4  points  in  average  class  standing  between  two  groups' 
pursuing  a  large  number  of  studies  does  not  seem  at  all  striking ;  but 
a  difference  of  ability  which  much  exceeded  this  would  render  the  co- 
education of  the  two  races  impracticable.  The  difference  between 
the  two  groups  is  small  indeed  when  compared  with  their  overlap- 
ping. If  their  records  were  indiscriminately  mixed,  you  could  not 
possibly  separate  the  one  from  the  other  by  the  character  of  the 
marks.  This  shows  that  educationally  they  may  be  regarded  as  a 
single  group.  We  assume,  then,  that,  under  such  conditions  as  pre- 
vail in  the  high  schools  of  the  City  of  New  York,  a  difference  of  4 
points  as  determined  by  teachers'  marks  is  a  fair  measure  of  the 
difference  in  scholastic  standing  between  the  two  groups.  It  is  a 
matter  of  regret  that  no  data  sufficiently  like  the  above  exist  with 
which  to  compare  this  result.  The  school  reports  of  the  city  of  Nash- 
ville show  that  the  average  marks  of  white  and  colored  high  school 
pupils  for  1904-1905  were,  respectively,  74  and  66;  and  for  1905- 
1906,  75  and  59.  The  differences  here  are  substantially  greater  than 
the  difference  obtained  from  our  data.  The  groups  in  Nashville, 
however,  are  educated  in  separate  schools.  It  is  quite  certain  that 
equal  facilities  are  not  provided  for  both  groups.  It  is  also  prob- 
able that  the  standards  of  efficiency  are  not  the  same  for  both  classes 
of  schools,  so  that  reliable  comparisons  can  not  be  made.  It  is  fur- 
thermore probable  that  the  relative  degree  of  race  mixture  in  the 
colored  pupils  of  the  two  sections  may  be  a  factor  in  the  problem. 

Tables  IX.-XXII.  show  the  comparative  standing  of  the  two 
groups  in  special  subjects.  They  are  of  interest  for  the  reason  that 
they  indicate  the  relative  attainment  of  colored  and  white  pupils  in 
different  fields  of  study,  involving  more  or  less  different  forms  of 
mental  activity.     The  first  two  of  these  tables  are  based  upon  the 

3 


30 


MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  TEE  AMERICAN  NEGBO 


work  in  English.  Table  IX.  shows  the  median  marks  of  both  groups 
in  the  study  of  English  for  the  first  half-year  in  high  school ;  Table 
X.  shows  the  same  marks  in  English  for  all  terms  combined.  The 
marks  recorded  in  Table  IX.  are  the  medians  of  the  several  marks 
given  to  individual  pupils  in  first  term  English;  in  Table  X.  they 
are  the  medians  of  all  marks  received  in  the  study  of  English.     It 


TABLES  IX-X 

Median  Marks  in  English 

First  Term 

Measures                                                      White  Colored 

Below  20  1  0 

20-24  0  0 

25-29  0  0 

30-34  2  1 

35-39  1  3 

40-44  1  5 

45-49  2  6 

50-54  8  14 

55-59  7  18 

60-64  24  39 

65-69  28  26 

70-74  31  10 

75-79  16  11 

80-84  13  6 

85-89  6  1 

90-100  3  2 


AU 

Terms 

White 

Colored 

1 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

1 

1 

1 

1 

3 

4 

1 

9 

9 

19 

5 

25 

36 

39 

37 

28 

28 

10 

11 

6 

10 

4 

3 

3 

3 

0 

40 


20 


r 


n^ 


I 

I r 


20  30  40  60  60  70  80  90 

Pig.  4.     Showing  the  Relative  Attainment  of  the  Two  Groups  in  First  Term 
English.      (See  Table  IX.) 


COMPAEATIFE  SCHOLASTIC  EFFICIENCY 


31 


would  have  been  interesting  to  make  a  comparison  of  the  standing 
of  the  two  groups  in  English  and  in  other  subjects  for  several  suc- 
cessive intervals,  and  especially  for  successive  years;  but  our  data 
are  insufficient  to  give  the  desired  reliability  to  such  results.  The 
reliability  of  an  average  measurement  depends  largely  upon  the  num- 
ber of  the  measurements  considered.  We  chose  a  figure  for  the  first 
term  because  of  the  large  number  of  different  cases ;  and  a  figure  for 
all  terms,  because  of  the  large  number  of  different  measurements. 

4^  


20 


20  30  40  50  60  70  80  90 

Fig.   5.     Showing  the  Relative  Attainment   of  the   Two  Groups  in  English  for 
all  Terms.     (See  Table  X.) 


The  median  mark  of  the  white  pupils  in  first  term  English  is  69, 
of  the  colored  62;  and  22  per  cent,  of  the  colored  pupils  reach  the 
median  mark  of  the  whites.  The  median  mark  of  the  white  pupils 
in  English  for  all  terms  is  67,  for  colored,  61 ;  and  24  per  cent,  of  the 
colored  pupils  reach  or  surpass  the  median  mark  of  the  whites. 

Tables  XI.  and  XII.  show  the  comparative  records  of  the  two 
groups  in  the  study  of  modern  languages.  The  modern  languages 
pursued  are  mainly  German  and  French,  Spanish  being  the  language 
studied  in  some  instances.  In  a  few  cases,  also,  two  languages  are 
studied  simultaneously,  after  the  second  year.  When  a  language 
was  begun  in  the  third  year,  it  was  reckoned  among  the  third  year 
subjects. 

For  the  first  term  the  median  mark  of  white  pupils  in  modern 
languages  is  66,  of  colored  63 ;  and  42  per  cent,  of  the  colored  pupils 
reach  the  median  mark  of  the  whites.     For  all  terms  the  median 


32 


MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBIC  AN  NEGBO 


Fig. 


20  30  40  50  60  70  80  90 

6.     Showing  the  Relative  Attainment  of  the   Two   Groups  in  First  Term 
Modern  Languages.     (See  Table  XI.) 

TABLES  XI-XII 
Median  Marks  in  Modeen  Languages 
First  Term 
Measures  White  Colored 

Below  20   1  1 

20-24   0  0 

25-29   1  1 

30-34   0  8 

35-39   5  4 

40-44  1  3 

45-49   2  7 

50-54   6  10 

55-59   5  8 

60-64   21  17 

65-69   13  12 

70-74   11  11 

75-79   8  5 

80-84  11  10 

85-89   7  3 

'90-100   2  2 


All 

Terms 

White 
3 

Colored 
2 

0 

0 

0 

2 

2 

2 

5 

2 

4 

5 

5 

18 

15 

15 

16 

21 

86 

31 

23 

19 

19 

10 

12 

6 

4 

5 

4 

2 

2 

0 

30 


SO 


10 


Q 


Hb 


20  30  40  60  60  70  80  90 

Fig.  7.     Showing  the  Relative  Attainment  of  the  Two  Groups  in  Modern  Lan- 
guages for  all  Terms.     (See  Table  XII.) 


COMPARATIVE  SCHOLASTIC  EFFICIENCY 


33 


mark  of  white  pupils  is  63,  of  colored  60 ;  and  33  per  cent,  of  the  col- 
ored pupils  reach  the  median  mark  of  the  whites. 

Table  XIII.  shows  the  median  marks  in  mathematics  for  the  first 
term ;  Table  XIV.  the  same  for  all  terms.  Elementary  algebra  is  the 
subject  of  study  in  first  year  mathematics  except  in  a  few  cases  in 
which  commercial  arithmetic  is  studied  simultaneously  with  it  or  is 
substituted  for  it.  Plane  geometry  is  in  nearly  every  instance  the 
subject  studied  during  the  second  year.  We  have  in  addition  a  few 
cases  in  which  intermediate  or  higher  algebra,  solid  geometry,  or 
plane  trigonometry  is  pursued. 

TABLES  XIII-XIV 
Median  Marks  in  Mathematics — Subjects  Combined 

First  Term  All  Terms 

Measures                                                      White  Colored  White  Colored 

Below  20   3  4  1  6 

20-24   0  1  1  2 

25-29   0  1  0  0 

30-34   3  1  5  4 

35-39   5  6  3  6 

40-44   0  5  3  9 

45-49   5  9  8  7 

50-54   14  14  m  18 

55-59   4  11  17  23 

60-64   34  14  26  27 

65-69   14  15  22  17 

70-74   13  20  11     .  11 

75-79   22  18  17  7 

80-84   17  2  11  3 

85-89   8  8  6  3 

90-100   6  7  2  4 


30 


20 


10 


ri-[Ji 


n 


20 


30  40  50  60 


70  80  90 


Tig.   8.     Showing  the  Eelative  Attainment  of  the   Two   Groups   in  First   Term 
Mathematics.     (See  Table  XIII.) 


34 


MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  TEE  AMEBIC  AN  NEGBO 


20 


10 


I       I 
I      I 


1 
1 
1 

1 
r 

Fig. 


20         30  40  60         60  70  80  90 

9.     Showing  the  Eelative  Attainment  of  the  Two  Groups  in  Mathematics 


for  all  Terms.     (See  Table  XIV.) 


The  median  mark  of  the  white  pupils  in  first  term  mathematics  is 
66,  of  colored  pupils  65;  and  46  per  cent,  of  the  colored  pupils 
reach  the  median  mark  of  the  whites.  The  median  mark  of  the  white 
pupils  for  all  terms  in  mathematics  is  64,  of  the  colored  59 ;  and  32 
per  cent,  of  the  colored  pupils  reach  the  median  mark  of  the  whites. 

Tables  XV.,  XVI.,  XVII.  show  the  comparative  standing  of  the 
groups  in  arithmetic,  algebra,  and  geometry  respectively.  The  con- 
siderable difference  in  relative  standing  between  the  two  groups  dur- 
ing the  first  term  and  for  the  entire  period  suggested  the  tabulation 
of  the  results  separately  in  order  to  see  their  comparative  attain- 
ments in  the  different  mathematical  branches.     The  median  mark  of 

TABLES  XV-XVII 

Median  Marks  in  Mathematics — Subjects  Separate 


Arithmetic 

Algebra 

Geometry 

First 

Term 

First 

Year 

Second  Year 

Measures 

White 

Colored 

White 

Colored 

White 

Colored 

Below 

20   . 

..      0 

0 

3 

4 

3 

8 

20- 

24   . 

..      0 

0 

2 

0 

2 

5 

25- 

29   . 

..      0 

0 

0 

1 

0 

0 

30- 

34   . 

..      0 

1 

4 

2 

1 

3 

35- 

39   . 

2 

2 

3 

5 

1 

6 

40- 

44   . 

..      0 

4 

2 

8 

5 

6 

45- 

49   . 

..      0 

1 

11 

10 

6 

6 

50- 

54   . 

..      3 

4 

8 

12 

6 

9 

55- 

59   . 

.     3 

3 

13 

13 

10 

10 

60- 

64   . 

..     5 

10 

23 

25 

18 

9 

65- 

69   . 

. .   13 

10 

21 

11 

8 

4 

70- 

74   . 

..      6 

6 

11 

18 

4 

5 

75- 

79   . 

.      8 

4 

15 

13 

8 

1 

80- 

84   . 

..      5 

0 

12 

3 

.     6 

1 

85- 

89   . 

.     2 

0 

7 

3 

2 

1 

90- 

100   . 

..      1 

0 

2 

5 

0 

0 

COMPABATIVE  SCHOLASTIC  EFFICIENCY 


35 


white  pupils  in  arithmetic  is  67,  of  colored  pupils  63;  and  39  per 
cent,  of  colored  pupils  reach  the  median  mark  of  the  whites.  The 
median  mark  of  white  pupils  in  algebra  is  64,  of  colored  62 ;  and  44 
per  cent,  of  the  colored  pupils  reach  the  median  mark  of  the  whites. 
The  median  mark  of  white  pupils  in  geometry  is  60,  of  colored  50; 
and  26  per  cent,  of  the  colored  pupils  reach  the  median  mark  of  the 
whites. 

In  the  study  of  elementary  science,  the  subject  of  biology  or  phys- 
iology is  usually  pursued  in  the  first  year  of  high  school,  chemistry 
the  second  year,  and  physics  the  third  year.  Tables  XVIII.-XIX. 
show  the  comparative  results  of  the  study  of  the  sciences. 

TABLES  XVIII-XIX 

Median  Marks  in  Science 


Measures  White 

Below  20   0 

20-24   0 

25-29   1 

30-34   1 

35-39   0 

40-44   4 

45-49   3 

50-54   4 

55-59   13 

60-64   15 

65-69   26 

70-74   29 

75-79   18 

80-84   14 

85-89   3 

90-100   2 


'erm 

All  Terms 

Colored       li- 

White 

Colored 

0 

0 

0 

2 

0 

1 

1 

1 

0 

1 

0 

4 

2 

0 

3 

4 

4 

5 

7 

3 

8 

12 

5 

13 

8 

16 

14 

22 

27 

35 

24 

23 

18 

19 

28 

16 

17 

17 

9 

9 

5 

4 

4 

1 

0 

2 

1 

0 

30 


20 


10 


CID: 


3- 


• I 

I  • 

I I 

!  L. 


!ib 


20         30  40  50  60         70  80  90 

Fig.   10.     Showing  the  Eelative  Attainment  of  the   Two  Groups  in   the  First 
Term  Science.     (See  Table  XVIII.) 


36 


MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  TEE  AMEEICAN  NEGEO 


30 


^0 

Fig.  11 


Showing  the  Eelative  Attainment  of  the  Two  Groups  in  Science  for  all 
Terms.     (See  Table  XIX.) 


The  median  mark  of  the  white  pupils  in  science  for  the  first  term 
is  69,  of  the  colored  65 ;  and  39  per  cent,  of  the  colored  group  reach 
the  median  mark  of  the  whites.  The  median  mark  of  the  white 
pupils  for  all  terms  in  science  is  67,  of  the  colored  61 ;  and  29  per 
cent,  of  the  colored  group  reach  the  median  mark  of  the  whites. 

Table  XX.  presents  all  data  on  history  and  related  subjects  for 
all  terms.  Table  XXI.  gives  the  same  data  for  the  ancient  lan- 
guages— Latin  and  Greek. 

The  median  mark  of  the  white  pupils  in  the  study  of  history  for 
all  terms  is  66,  of  colored  60 ;  and  31  per  cent,  of  the  colored  group 
reach  the  median  mark  of  the  whites. 

The  median  mark  of  the  white  pupils  in  the  study  of  Greek  and 
Latin  for  all  terms  is  65,  of  the  colored  60;  and  27  per  cent,  of  the 
colored  group  reach  the  median  mark  of  the  whites. 

Table  XXII.  presents  all  data  for  all  terms  on  the  several  com- 
mercial subjects — bookkeeping,  stenography,  business  forms,  and 
commercial  law.  There  is  no  doubt  considerable  unlikeness  in  these 
subjects,  but  the  meager  data  on  any  one  of  them  suggested  a  single 
tabulation.  We  may  also  assume  a  like  motive  for  successful  study 
in  the  pursuit  of  each  of  them — their  immediate  applicability  in 
business  life. 

The  median  mark  of  the  white  pupils  in  the  commercial  branches 
for  all  terms  is  70,  of  the  colored  pupils  62 ;  and  22  per  cent,  of  the 
colored  pupils  reach  the  median  mark  of  the  whites. 

The  data  given  in  Tables  IX.-XXII.  are  summarized  in  Table 


COMPARATIVE  SCHOLASTIC  EFFICIENCY 


37 


XXIII.  It  will  be  seen  that  practically  all  median  marks  lie  in  the 
range  of  the  60 's,  showing  how  the  great  body  of  pupils  gravitate 
towards  and  a  little  above  the  passing  mark. 

TABLES  XX-XXII 
Median  Marks  in  Other  Subjects 


Commercial 

History 

Ancient 

Languages 

Branches 

All 

Terms 

All 

Terms 

All 

Terms 

Measures 

White 

Colored 

White 

Colored 

White 

Colored 

Below 

20   .. 

0 

0 

0 

0 

1 

0 

20-24   . . 

0 

1 

0 

1 

0 

0 

25- 

29   .. 

0 

1 

0 

1 

0 

0 

30- 

34   .. 

0 

2 

2 

2 

0 

0 

35- 

39   .. 

1 

0 

4 

0 

2 

2 

40- 

44   .. 

3 

4 

1 

3 

0 

2 

45- 

49   .. 

1 

7 

1 

5 

2 

1 

50- 

54   .. 

3 

14 

2 

7 

3 

3 

55- 

59   .. 

8 

15 

4 

9 

1 

13 

60- 

64   .. 

22 

15 

16 

14 

6 

9 

65- 

69   .. 

20 

12 

13 

5 

4 

9 

70- 

74   .. 

16 

11 

9 

6 

7 

6 

75- 

79   .. 

6 

3 

6 

2 

7 

2 

80- 

84   .. 

4 

4 

1 

2 

6 

1 

85- 

89   .. 

3 

3 

2 

2 

2 

1 

90- 

100   .. 

0 

0 

1 

0 

2 

1 

SO 

Fig.  12. 


10 


30         40         50         60  70  80  90 

Showing  the  Eelative  Attainment  of  the  Two  Groups  in  History  for  all 
Terms,     (See  Table  XX.) 


....^r^ 


I 
I 
I 


SO  30  40  50  60  70  80  90 

Fig.  13.     Showing  the  Relative  Attainment  of  the  Two  Groups  in  Ancient  Lan- 
guages for  all  Terms.     (See  Table  XXI.) 


38  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEGBO 

10 


3 


20  30  40  60         60  70  80  80 

Fig.  14.     Showing  the  Relative  Attainment  of  the  Two  Groups  in  the  Commercial 
Branches  for  all  Terms.      (See  Table  XXII.) 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  white  pupils  rank  higher  in  every  subject 
of  study ;  but  that  the  difference  in  standing,  though  present  in  every 
instance,  is  numerically  not  very  great.  If  the  actual  difference  be- 
tween the  two  groups  were  too  pronounced,  it  is  evident  that  it  would 
render  impracticable  all  schemes  of  coeducation,  which  experience 
has  shown  not  to  be  the  case. 

The  colored  pupils  make  relatively  the  poorest  showing  in  Eng- 
lish and  the  commercial  branches;  they  make  relatively  the  best 
showing  in  mathematics,  especially  arithmetic  and  algebra,  and  in  the 
modern  languages.  Ancient  languages,  science,  and  history  fall  in 
between  these  in  the  order  named. 

Why  the  colored  pupils  do  poorest  work  in  English  and  best  in 
mathematics  would  probably  require  a  specific  psychological  study 
for  its  satisfactory  determination.  One  might  easily  have  supposed 
the  reverse  to  be  true.  In  fact  this  seems  to  be  the  popular  impres- 
sion. This  view  also  has  the  sanction  of  scholars.  Ratzel  states  re- 
garding the  negro  that  he  "readily  picks  up  foreign  languages  and 
learns  to  read  in  a  short  time.  "^  Shaler  also  expresses  this  view 
of  the  negro,  saying,^  that  he  "has  a  remarkable  aptitude  for  lan- 
guage. He  quickly  compassed  the  difficult  English  speech,  and  has 
effectively  mastered  it,  so  that  he  uses  it  with  more  ability  than  the 
peasant  class  of  our  own  race.  Elsewhere  he  has  done  the  like  with 
all  the  tongues  of  Southern  Europe."  Shaler  further  states^  that 
"with  rare  exceptions  his  ability  in  the  field  of  mathematics  is  far  less 
than  that  of  the  Aryan  and  the  Semite.  .  .  .  The  mathematics  which 
require  constructive  ability  of  the  higher  kind,  as  algebra  and  geom- 
etry, are  generally  beyond  the  capacities  of  this  people."  And  yet 
the  results  of  our  study  apparently  quite  reverse  this  position.  And 
the  data  presented  seem  to  be  sufficient  to  place  this  conclusion  al- 
most beyond  doubt.  It  may  be  that  the  negro,  by  apt  imitation,  is 
able  to  acquire  easily  a  spoken  language,  while  the  written  language, 

^  "  The  History  of  Mankind, ' '  Vol.  II.,  p.  326. 
'"'The  Neighbor,"  p.  153. 
*  Idem.,  p.  151. 


COMPABATIVE  SCHOLASTIC  EFFICIENCY  39 

requiring  more  technical  detail  and  a  more  exact  understanding  of 
form  and  structure,  is  somewhat  baffling  to  him.  It  is  a  common 
observation  that  negroes  associated  with  whites  learn  to  speak  their 
language  with  considerable  fluency,  but  at  the  same  time  with  gross 
inaccuracies.  With  limited  observation  and  inquiry,  I  have  not 
been  able  to  discover  that  this  observation  is  in  any  degree  true  of 
the  spoken  or  written  discourse  of  colored  high  school  pupils. 

It  might  be  thought  that  poor  culture  in  the  homes  of  the  colored 
pupils,  where  the  parents  have  but  a  meager  or  no  knowledge  of  the 
written  language,  and  make  but  a  very  imperfect  use  of  the  spoken 
language,  is  largely  responsible  for  the  limited  success  of  this  group 
of  pupils  in  the  study  of  English  in  the  high  school.  While  this  no 
doubt  has  its  influence,  it  does  not,  however,  seem  to  be  fundamental, 
unless  we  could  show  that  the  poor  speech  in  the  home  is  due  wholly 
to  some  other  cause  than  that  of  an  inaptitude  for  language  train- 
ing. As  a  matter  of  fact,, the  colored  parent  has  probably  had  a 
better  chance  to  learn  the  English  language  than  the  average  white 
parent  of  the  City  of  New  York.  Many  pupils  of  the  high  schools 
being  of  foreign  parentage  do  not  hear  English  spoken  in  the  home. 
And  while  members  of  colored  homes  are  without  books  and  without 
literary  culture,  we  have  no  w^ay  of  knowing  that  this  is  true  to  any 
greater  degree  of  the  homes  of  the  colored  pupils  who  come  to  the 
high  school  than  of  the  homes  of  the  whites.  One  might  think  that 
the  taste  of  the  colored  pupils  is  more  primitive,  and  that  they  do 
not  consequently  appreciate  the  refinements  of  English  style. 
Whether  anything  like  this  might  be  true  of  high  school  English,  we 
can  not  say.  However  it  may  be  explained,  it  remains  that  the  col- 
ored pupils  do  relatively  very  poor  work  in  the  English  of  the  high 
school. 

The  two  groups  are  most  nearly  on  a  parity  of  attainment  in  the 
study  of  first  term  mathematics.  There  is  only  one  point  of  differ- 
ence in  the  median  marks,  and  46  per  cent,  of  the  colored  pupils 
reach  the  mark  attained  by  50  per  cent,  of  the  whites.  Algebra 
seems,  then,  to  be  the  subject  in  w^hich  the  colored  pupils  are  able  to 
make  the  most  favorable  showing.  Their  relative  standing  in  arith- 
metic is  also  high;  but  in  geometry  it  is  decidedly  poorer.  Only  26 
per  cent,  of  the  colored  pupils  reach  the  mark  in  geometry  attained 
by  50  per  cent,  of  the  whites.  The  modes  of  thought  in  geometry 
are  evidently  more  difficult  relatively  for  the  colored  pupils  than  are 
those  of  arithmetic  and  algebra.  The  observation  has  also  been 
made  that  girls  succeed  relatively  better  with  high  school  algebra 
than  geometry,  as  compared  with  the  work  of  boys. 

Aft£r  comparative  success  in  manipulating  the  complicated  sym- 


40  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBIC  AN  NEGBO 

holism  of  arithmetic  and  algebra,  we  may  wonder  why  the  colored 
group  does  not  attain  a  higher  relative  standing  in  the  commercial 
branches.  It  has  been  seen  that  only  22  per  cent,  of  the  colored 
pupils  reach  the  median  mark  of  the  whites  in  these  branches — 
being  the  poorest  relative  attainment  made  with  the  exception  of  that 
in  first  term  English.  The  manipulations  of  such  a  subject  as  book- 
keeping are  of  course  quite  complex,  and  may  be  of  relatively  greater 
difficulty  for  the  colored  group.  It  may  be  also  that  the  business 
ideas  and  concepts  of  this  group  are  less  clearly  defined  and  less 
fully  developed,  which,  if  a  fact,  might  be  attributed  either  to  pres- 
ent social  conditions  or  to  differences  in  race  experience,  or  both. 
Very  likely,  too,  the  practical  value  of  such  training  appeals  less 
strongly  to  the  colored  pupil,  so  that  his  interest  and  effort  are,  in 
consequence,  less  actively  aroused.  In  modern  language  study  it  is 
found  that  the  colored  pupils  meet  with  relatively  high  success. 
This  is  in  accord  with  the  observation  often  made  of  their  aptitude 
for  language.  Oral  discourse  may  also  be  emphasized  more  in  the 
study  of  a  foreign  language  than  in  the  study  of  English,  and  in  this 
the  race  has  shown  a  capacity  to  excel.  In  first  term  work,  they 
rank,  in  modern  languages,  second  only  to  algebra;  and  all  marks 
considered,  it  is  here  that  their  rank  is  highest.  (See  Table  XXIV.) 
Perhaps  also  it  is  in  a  study  of  foreign  languages  that  the  two  races 
are  most  nearly  on  an  equal  footing.  In  this  field  the  work  is  almost 
equally  new  and  strange  to  both.  But  even  here  the  linguistic  devel- 
opment of  white  pupils,  as  influenced  by  race  heredity,  ought  to  be 
somewhat  more  in  their  favor. 

In  Latin  and  Greek,  however,  the  standing  of  the  colored  group 
is  again  relatively  poor.  The  reason  may  be  found  partly  in  the 
greater  difficulty  of  the  study  of  these  languages,  and  partly  in  the 
social  environment.  These  ancient  tongues  have  so  long  been  asso- 
ciated with  learning  and  power  both  in  church  and  state,  that  a  sort 
of  feeling  of  dignity  and  respect  attaches  to  them  that  no  doubt  in- 
fluences white  pupils  more  strongly  than  it  does  the  colored.  Also 
as  a  preparation  for  college,  these  languages  may  make  a  stronger 
appeal  to  the  interest  of  the  white  pupils. 

In  the  sciences  and  history  colored  pupils  meet,  we  might  say, 
with  about  average  success.  The  median  mark  in  the  sciences  is  the 
same  as  the  median  mark  for  all  subjects;  that  in  history  is  slightly 
higher.  One  might  naturally  have  expected  the  colored  pupils  to 
have  made  a  more  favorable  showing  in  history.  It  is  quite  common 
for  writers  on  the  negro  race  to  express  the  view  that  colored  pupils 
easily  succeed  with  all  subjects  requiring  memory.  But  their  mem- 
ory is  probably  not  so  far  in  excess  of  other  capacities  as  has  been 


COMPAEATIFE  SCHOLASTIC  EFFICIENCY  41 

commonly  supposed ;  and  history,  as  now  taught,  makes  a  much  wider 
intellectual  appeal  than  to  mere  rote  memory. 

TVe  have  already  endeavored  to  estimate  the  scholastic  efficiency  or 
ability  of  the  white  and  the  colored  pupils  by  determining  their  aver- 
age standing  in  all  school  subjects.  We  may  further  measure  their 
relative  scholastic  efficiency  by  ascertaining  what  percentage  the 
whole  number  of  subjects  passed  by  each  group  was  of  the  whole 
number  of  subjects  pursued.  In  other  words,  we  may  take  the  per- 
centage of  promotions  as  a  measure  of  the  school  efficiency  of  the 
pupils.  This  is  determining  efficiency  in  scholastic  achievement  by 
the  ability  of  a  pupil  to  make  such  a  mark  in  class  work  and  school 
examinations  as  to  justify  a  teacher  in  the  belief  that  the  pupil  has 
a  sufficient  knowledge  of  a  subject  to  entitle  him  to  promotion  or 
graduation.  As  already  pointed  out,  only  first  trials  in  a  subject  are 
considered.  The  results  obtained  upon  this  basis  are  shown  in  Table 
XXIII. 

TABLE  XXIII 

Showing  Number  of  Subjects  Pursued  and  Percentage  op 

Failures  by  Terms  and  by  Years 


White  Pupils 

Colored 

Pupils 

Percent- 

Percent- 

Relative 

No. 

No. 

age  of 

No. 

No. 

age  of 

Efficiency 

Intervals 

Subjects 

Failures 

Failures 

Subjects 

Failures 

Failures 

of  Colored 

First  term 

665 

148 

22 

662 

232 

35 

83 

Second  term 

505 

130 

26 

488 

200 

41 

80 

First  year 

1,170 

278 

24 

1,140 

432 

38 

82 

Third  term 

405 

85 

21 

443 

210 

47 

67 

Fourth  term 

296 

77 

26 

307 

150 

49 

69 

Second  year 

701 

162 

23 

750 

360 

48 

67 

Fifth  term 

243 

67 

27 

223 

113 

51 

62 

Sixth  term 

181 

51 

28 

141 

65 

46 

75 

Third  year 

424 

118 

28 

364 

178 

49 

71 

Seventh  term 

95 

15 

15 

76 

27 

35 

76 

Eighth  term 

43 

5 

12 

42 

6 

14 

97 

Fourth  year 

138 

20 

14 

118 

33 

28 

84 

Totals 

2,433 

578 

24 

2,382 

1,003 

42 

76 

It  will  be  seen  that  during  the  first  year  at  high  school  a  total 
of  1,170  subjects  was  pursued  by  the  pupils  of  the  white  group,  and 
that  in  278  instances  they  failed  of  making  the  passing  mark;  that 
is,  they  failed  in  24  per  cent,  of  their  studies.  The  corresponding 
figures  for  the  colored  pupils  are  1,140  subjects,  and  432  instances,  or 
38  per  cent.,  of  failure. 

For  the  second  year,  the  white  pupils  pursue  a  total  of  701  sub- 
jects, and  fail  in  162  cases,  making  the  percentage  of  failure  23. 


42  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  TEE  AMERICAN  NEGRO 

The  colored  pupils  pursue  750  subjects  and  fail  in  360  cases,  making 
the  percentage  of  failure  48. 

For  the  third  year,  the  white  group  pursue  a  total  of  424  subjects 
and  fail  in  118  cases,  making  the  percentage  of  failure  28.  The 
colored  pupils  pursue  364  subjects  and  fail  in  178  cases,  making  the 
percentage  of  failure  49. 

In  the  fourth  year,  the  white  pupils  pursue  a  total  of  138  sub- 
jects and  fail  in  20  cases,  making  the  percentage  of  failure  14;  the 
colored  pupils  pursue  118  subjects  and  fail  in  33  cases,  making  the 
percentage  of  failure  28. 

For  the  entire  period  of  4  years,  the  white  pupils  pursue  a  total 
of  2,433  subjects  and  fail  in  578  cases,  making  the  percentage  of 
failure  24.  The  colored  group  pursue  a  total  of  2,382  subjects  and 
fail  in  1,003  cases,  making  the  percentage  of  failure  42. 

During  the  entire  period,  in  other  words,  the  white  pupils  passed 
in  76  per  cent,  of  all  subjects  pursued  on  first  trial;  the  colored 
pupils  passed  in  58  per  cent,  of  all  subjects  on  first  trial.  If  we 
take  the  achievement  of  white  pupils  on  first  trial  as  a  basis,  it  will 
be  found  that  the  achievement  of  the  colored  pupils  is  about  76  per 
cent,  of  it.  That  is,  on  the  basis  under  consideration,  the  efficiency 
of  colored  pupils  in  the  high  school  of  the  City  of  New  York,  is  about 
%  of  that  of  the  whites. 

A  comparative  study  of  the  mental  ability  of  white  and  colored 
pupils  by  the  methods  of  mental  tests  has  scarcely  begun,  so  that 
we  are  unable  to  check  the  reliability  of  our  results,  except  in  a  very 
general  way,  by  measurements  which  have  been  thus  derived.  A  re- 
port^ of  a  study  of  the  learning  of  white  and  colored  delinquent  girls 
recently  made  by  Bird  T.  Baldwin  tends,  however,  even  to  accentu- 
ate the  difference  in  learning  capacity  between  the  two  racial  groups 
as  compared  with  the  results  which  we  have  obtained.  Professor 
Baldwin's  study  was  based  upon  experiments  with  a  substitution 
test,  w^hich  were  completed  by  groups  of  white  and  colored  girls  rang- 
ing between  the  ages  of  thirteen  and  twenty-one.  Of  the  colored 
group  he  says:  "The  work  of  these  girls  is  less  in  amount,  less  neat, 
and  less  accurate.  The  marks  are  more  irregular,  and  many  pay 
little  attention  to  errors. ' '  Quoting  further :  "  In  this  type  of  learn- 
ing it  is  found  that  comparing  the  amount  of  work  done  by  the  thirty- 
seven  white  girls  with  the  work  done  by  thirty  negroes  who  accom- 
plished more  than  50  per  cent,  of  correct  results,  it  is  evident 
that  the  negroes  are  decidedly  inferior.  The  white  girls  made  72.3 
substitutions  as  a  general  average,  the  negroes  55.8.  The  negroes 
accomplished  62.4  per  cent,  as  much  work  as  the  white  girls,  and 
made  245.3  per  cent,  as  many  errors." 

'  See  The  Journal  of  Educational  Fsychology,  June,  1913. 


COMF AMATIVE  SCHOLASTIC  EFFICIENCY  43 

These  are  about  the  only  comparative  results  hitherto  published 
of  the  mental  capacity  of  two  racial  groups  which  have  been  obtained 
by  means  of  mental  tests.  They  correspond  essentially  with  the  re- 
sults which  we  have  obtained  by  a  comparison  of  school  work  as  indi- 
cated by  teachers '  marks.  Estimates  of  racial  ability  made  from  obser- 
vation are  usually  indefinite  in  character,  and  afford  little  basis  for 
comparison  with  the  measured  results  which  we  have  obtained  except 
in  their  general  tendency.  Perhaps  the  most  interesting  estimate 
based  upon  observation  is  that  of  the  great  English  student  of  hered- 
ity, Sir  Francis  Galton,  who,  by  use  of  the  law  of  deviation  from  an 
average,  has  roughly  compared  the  worth  of  the  negro  race  relative 
to  the  Anglo-Saxon.  Of  his  method  Galton  says:  "To  save  the  read- 
er's time  and  patience,  I  propose  to  act  upon  an  assumption  that 
would  require  a  good  deal  of  discussion  to  limit,  and  to  which  the 
reader  may  at  first  demur,  but  which  can  not  lead  to  any  error  of 
importance  in  a  rough  provisional  enquiry.  .  .  .  There  is  good 
reason  to  expect  that  the  error  introduced  by  the  assumption  can  not 
sensibly  affect  the  offhand  results  for  which  alone  I  propose  to  em- 
ploy it."* 

Galton  divides  both  races  into  sixteen  grades  of  ability,  eight 
falling  above  and  eight  below  the  racial  mean,  and  assumes  the  in- 
terval of  ability  separating  these  grades  to  be  equal  in  all  cases.  The 
individuals  of  both  races  are  supposed  to  be  distributed  through 
the  grades  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  deviation  from  an  average. 
Galton  then  considers  the  ablest  representatives  of  the  negro  race, 
as  Toussaint  I'Ouverture,  ranking  as  one  in  a  million,  and  regards 
them  as  falling  not  less  than  two  grades  below  the  corresponding 
representatives  of  the  Anglo-Saxon.  Of  men  surpassing  L'Ouve- 
ture's  ability  there  are  fifteen  among  a  million  of  Anglo-Saxons. 
Similarly  each  grade  of  ability  among  the  Anglo-Saxons  is  regarded 
as  falling  at  least  two  intervals  above  the  corresponding  grade 
among  the  negroes.  This  distribution  results  in  a  much  smaller 
degree  of  over-lapping  in  ability  than  that  which  was  obtained  by 
a  comparison  of  school  marks.  Only  16  among  a  hundred  negroes 
would  rank  in  ability  equal  to  or  above  the  median  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  as  compared  with  29  out  of  a  hundred  among  the  high  school 
pupils  of  New  York  City.  This  discrepancy,  however,  may  be  largely 
explained  by  a  consideration  of  the  differences  in  the  groups  com- 
pared— the  groups  which  we  have  studied  being  far  more  select  and 
specialized  by  the  operation  of  several  obvious  influences.  Another 
slight  source  of  error  may  be  found  in  the  assumption  of  equal  vari- 
bility  between  the  two  races.     Of  this  Galton  himself  remarks:  "I 

*" Hereditary  Genius,"  p.  337. 


44  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBIC  AN  NEGEO 

know  this  can  not  be  strictly  true,  for  it  would  be  in  defiance  of 
analogy  if  the  variability  of  all  races  were  precisely  the  same."  It 
thus  appears  that  these  estimates  of  racial  ability  derived  from  ob- 
servation and  from  a  comparison  of  school  efficiency  do  not  vary 
widely  from  each  other. 

To  summarize,  the  following  are  the  leading  results  deduced  from 
the  data  considered: 

The  median  age  of  white  pupils  at  the  time  of  entering  high 
school  in  the  City  of  New  York  is  14  years  6  months;  of  colored 
pupils  15  years  1  month — a  difference  of  7  months.  The  average 
deviation  for  whites  is  9  months;  for  colored,  15  months.  Twenty- 
seven  per  cent,  of  the  whites  are  as  old  as  the  median  age  of  the 
colored  or  older. 

Colored  pupils  remain  in  school  a  greater  length  of  time  than  do 
the  whites.  For  the  cases  studied,  the  average  time  spent  in  high 
school  for  white  pupils  was  3.8  terms ;  for  colored,  4.5  terms.  About 
28  per  cent,  of  the  whites  attain  the  average  time  of  attendance  for 
the  colored. 

Considering  the  entire  scholastic  record,  the  median  mark  of  the 
150  white  pupils  is  66 ;  of  the  150  colored  pupils,  62 ;  a  difference  of 
4  per  cent.  The  average  deviation  of  white  pupils  is  7  ;  of  the  colored 
6.5.  Twenty-nine  per  cent,  of  the  colored  pupils  reach  or  surpass  the 
median  mark  of  whites. 

TABLE  XXIV 
Percentage  of  Colored  Pupils  Beaching  the  Median  Mark  of  Whites 

Subjects.  Per  Cent. 

English — first  term   22 

English — all  terms 24 

Modern  languages — first  term    42 

Modern  languages — all  terms    33 

Mathematics — first  term     46 

Mathematics — all   terms    32 

Sciences — first  term     39 

Sciences — all  terms   29 

History — all  terms   31 

Ancient  languages — all  terms  27 

Commercial  branches — all  terms    22 

Arithmetic — first  term    39 

All  subjects — all  terms    29 

The  white  pupils  have  a  higher  average  standing  in  all  subjects. 
The  results  are  summarized  in  Table  XXIV.  The  percentage  of 
colored  pupils  reaching  the  median  mark  of  the  whites  in  the  several 
subjects  is  as  follows :  Modern  languages,  33 ;  mathematics,  32 ;  his- 
tory, 31;  the  sciences,  29;  Latin  and  Greek,  27;  English,  24;  the 
commercial  subjects,  22 ;  and  all  subjects  together,  29. 


COMPASATIVE  SCEOLASTIC  EFFICIENCY  45 

The  total  number  of  subjects  pursued  by  the  white  group  was 
2,433;  the  total  number  of  subjects  passed  on  first  trial  was  1,855; 
the  percentage  of  subjects  passed  being  76.  The  total  number  of 
subjects  pursued  by  the  colored  groups  was  2,382;  the  total  num- 
ber of  subjects  passed  on  first  trial  was  1,379,  the  percentage 
of  subjects  passed  being  58.  Interpreting  these  figures  as  a 
measure  of  relative  scholastic  efficiency,  the  efficiency  of  colored 
pupils  is  76  per  cent,  of  that  of  the  whites ;  that  is,  the  colored  pupils 
are  about  %  as  efficient  as  the  whites  in  the  pursuit  of  high  school 
studies. 


CHAPTER     V 

The  Educational  Significance  of  the  Data 

The  facts  set  forth  in  the  preceding  chapter  are  of  great  signifi- 
cance from  the  point  of  view  of  instruction  and  from  that  of  educa- 
tional administration  and  expenditure.  The  problem  of  the  back- 
ward pupil  presents  grave  difficulties  both  in  class-room  instruction 
and  in  school  organization.  Also  the  expense  to  the  community  of 
schooling  any  pupil  up  to  any  definite  standard  of  scholarship  in- 
creases directly  with  retardation.  The  facts  make  it  plain  that  the 
burden  of  education  falls  much  more  heavily  upon  those  communities 
having  a  large  proportion  of  colored  population. 

It  has  been  shown  that  the  average  of  the  white  pupils  in  all . 
subjects  taught  in  the  high  schools  of  New  York  City  is  66,  and  of 
colored  pupils,  62.  The  average  deviation  of  the  white  pupils  was  7, 
and  of  colored,  6.5.  If  we  assume  the  distribution  of  pupils  by 
marks  to  be  about  that  of  the  normal  surface  of  frequency,  we  will 
have  25.28  per  cent,  of  the  white  group  between  the  passing  mark  60 
and  the  average  66,  and  9.73  per  cent,  of  the  colored  group  between 
the  passing  mark  60  and  their  average  62.  That  is,  75.28  per  cent, 
of  the  white  group  are  up  to  or  above  the  passing  mark,  as  compared 
with  59.73  per  cent,  of  the  colored  group.  According  to  these  esti- 
mates about  75  out  of  100  white  pupils  attain  promotion  as  compared 
with  60  out  of  100  colored.  Retardation  would  thus  be  25  per  cent, 
and  40  per  cent.,  respectively,  for  the  white  and  colored  groups. 

It  is  plain,  then,  that  if  an  attempt  were  seriously  made  to  bring 
the  scholastic  training  of  the  colored  pupils  throughout  the  country 
up  to  the  present  standards  of  the  schools,  its  accomplishment  would 
require  a  considerably  increased  outlay  both  of  time  and  of  money. 
The  expenditure  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances  would 
probably  be  on  an  average  not  less  than  a  fourth  or  fifth  greater  per 
unit  of  colored  population, — even  if  no  allowance  were  made  for 
diminishing  educational  returns,  a  factor  which  also  would  doubtless 
have  to  be  taken  into  account. 

The  figures  of  Table  XXIII.  indicate  that  the  work  grows  some- 
what more  difficult  for  the  colored  pupils  as  the  high  school  course 
advances.  The  third  year  seems  to  increase  in  difficulty  for  the  whites 
also.  The  percentages  of  failure  for  the  successive  years  of  the  high 
school  are  as  follows :  first  year,  colored,  38,  white,  24 ;  second  year, 

46 


EDUCATIONAL  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  DATA  47 

colored,  48,  white,  23 ;  third  year,  colored,  49,  white,  28 ;  and  fourth 
year,  colored,  28,  white,  14.  For  both  groups  the  smallest  percen- 
tage of  failure  is  in  the  last  year.  This  is  no  doubt  due  in  part  to  a 
closer  selection  of  pupils,  and  perhaps  in  a  measure  to  the  greater 
leniency  of  teachers  in  the  final  year. 

The  reports  of  superintendents  of  numerous  city  schools  in  the 
various  Southern  States,  where  separate  schools  for  the  two  races  are 
maintained,  go  far  towards  establishing  the  proposition  that  the 
slower  progress  of  colored  pupils,  which  is  clearly  indicated  in  our 
tables,  is  of  general  occurrence.  These  reports  show  that  the  average 
age  of  the  colored  pupils  of  any  grade  is  always  considerably  higher 
than  the  average  age  of  white  pupils  of  the  same  grade.  They  also 
show  that  the  percentage  of  colored  pupils  is  relatively  greater  than 
the  white  in  the  lower  grades,  and  relatively  less  in  the  upper  grades. 
Thus,  in  the  first  and  second  grades,  the  percentage  of  colored  pupils 
is  in  excess  of  the  white;  in  the  third  or  fourth,  it  becomes  about 
the  same ;  while  in  the  higher  grades  the  relative  percentage  of  white 
pupils  is  always  greater. 

TABLE   XXV 

From  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Houston  (Texas)  Public  Schools 

FOR  1909-1910,  p.  96 

Sliowing  the  Distribution  of  Pupils  through  the  Grades  iy  Per  Cents. 

No.  Whites         Per  Cent  Whole     No.  Colored        Per  Cent.  Whole 
First   grade    .......    1,528  18.0  1,131  31.7 

Second  grade 1,314  15.5  756  21.2 

Third  grade   1,317  15.6  542  15.0 

Fourth  grade     1,]85  14.0  391  10.9 

Fifth  grade    865  10.2  299  8.0 

Sixth  grade    750  9.0  201  5.6 

Seventh  grade    559  6.6  106  2.9 

Eighth  grade 479  5.6  75  2.1 

Ninth  grade 207  2.4  31  .9 

Tenth   grade     139  1.6  23  .6 

Eleventh  grade    84  1.0  10  .3 

Totals    8,427   '  100.0  3,565  100.0 

A  few  tables  are  selected  from  city  school  reports  as  typical  of 
these  conditions.  Table  XXV.,  taken  from  the  annual  report  of  the 
Houston,  Texas,  public  schools  for  the  scholastic  year  1909-1910, 
gives  the  distribution  by  grades  of  8,427  white  and  3,565  colored 
pupils.  Nearly  a  third  of  all  the  colored  pupils  as  compared  with  a 
fifth  of  the  white  are  in  the  first  grade.  Sixty-two  per  cent,  of  the 
colored  as  compared  with  50  per  cent,  of  the  white  are  found  in  the 
first  three  grades.  The  proportion  of  white  to  colored  pupils  in  the 
high  school  grades  is  as  three  to  one. 


48  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBIC  AN  NEGBO 

Table  XXVI.,  taken  from  the  report  of  the  Board  of  Education 
of  Washington,  D.  C,  for  the  year  1906-1907,  shows  the  distribution 
of  the  pupils  of  the  city  schools  for  that  year  by  grades.  Nearly  a 
fourth  of  the  colored  pupils  are  in  the  first  grade  as  compared  with 
a  seventh  of  the  whites.  Fifty-one  per  cent,  of  the  colored  are 
found  in  the  first  three  grades  as  compared  with  37  per  cent,  of  the 
whites.  In  round  numbers,  the  distribution  of  the  two  groups 
through  the  city  schools  was  as  follows :  Kindergarten,  colored,  5  per 
cent,  white,  4  per  cent. ;  primary  grades,  colored,  62  per  cent.,  white, 
50  per  cent. ;  grammar  school  grades,  colored,  26  per  cent.,  white,  36 
per  cent. ;  secondary  schools,  colored  6,  white  10  per  cent. 

TABLE  XXVI 

From  the  Annual  Eeport  of  the  Washington  (D.  C.)  Public  Schools 

FOR  1906-1907,  p.  35 

SJwwing  the  Distribution  of  Pvpils  through  the  Grades  iy  Per  Cents. 

No  Whites         Per  Cent.  Wliole  No.  Colored  Per  Cent.  Whole 

Kindergarten   1,453                     4.11  942  5.42 

First  grade    5,060                   14.31  4,138  23.81 

Second  grade     4,199                   11.88  2,518'  14.48 

Third   grade     4,160                   11.77  2,199  12.65 

Fourth  grade     4,245                   12.00  1,988  11.44 

Fifth  grade    3,980                   11.25  1,621  9.33 

Sixth  grade    3,436                     9.72  1,232  7.09 

Seventh  grade    2,863                     8.10  964  5.54 

Eighth  grade     2,453                     6.94  683  3.93 

High  school   2,764                     7.82  587  3.38 

Manual  training  high       612                     1.73  418  2.40 

Normal  school 131                        .37  93  .53 

The  report  of  the  public  schools  of  Memphis,  Tennessee,  for  the 
scholastic  year  1908-1909  gives  the  distribution  of  9,226  white  and 
5,301  colored  pupils  both  by  grades  and  by  ages.  The  average  ages  of 
the  white  and  the  colorecl  groups  in  the  first  grade  are,  respectively, 
7.4  and  8.2  years;  in  the  second  grade,  8.7  and  10.4  years;  in  the 
third  grade,  10.0  and  11.6  years.  The  difference  in  average  age  is 
more  than  a  year  in  each  grade.  The  relative  percentages  of  the 
entire  groups  which  were  in  the  different  grades  are  for  white  and 
colored  respectively :  first  grade,  25  per  cent,  and  44  per  cent ;  second 
grade,  11  per  cent,  and  17  per  cent. ;  third  grade,  14  per  cent,  of 
each;  fourth  grade,  13  per  cent,  and  9  per  cent.  In  the  advanced 
grades  the  relative  percentage  of  the  white  pupils  predominates. 

These  figures  seem  to  be  more  or  less  typical  of  the  educational 
situation.  The  relative  percentage  of  colored  pupils  predominates 
in  the  lowest  grades,  becomes  equal  to  that  of  the  white  pupils  in  the 


EDUCATIONAL  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  DATA  49 

third  or  fourth  grade,  and  is  relatively  less  in  the  more  advanced 
grades.  The  condition  is  apparently  of  general  occurrence  so  that 
inefficiency  in  the  work  of  the  colored  schools  seems  everywhere  prev- 
alent. This  is  shown  both  by  the  fact  of  the  greater  average  age 
of  the  colored  pupils,  and  by  their  greater  relative  percentage  in 
the  lower  grades. 

TABLE  XXVII 

Condensed  from  Memphis  School  Eeport  for  1908-1909,  p.  23 
Showing  the  Distribution  of  Pupils  by  Per  Cents,  and  by  Ages  through  the  Grades 

White  Colored  | 

No. 

First   grade    2,261 

Second  grade     ....  1,056 

Third  grade   1,258 

Fourth  grade 1,167 

Fifth  grade    838 

Sixth  grade    816 

Seventh  grade   ....  627 

Eighth  grade   477 

Freshman    429' 

Sophomore    170 

Junior     91 

Senior    36 

Total   9,226  Total   .  .   5,301 

Also  when  the  degree  of  mental  development  of  pupils  of  nomi- 
nally the  same  school  grade  is  tested,  the  white  pupils  are  found  to 
make  a  more  favorable  showing.  Very  little  work,  however,  of  this; 
sort  has  hitherto  been  done.  In  a  preliminary  report^  of  a  com- 
parative study  by  Miss  Alice  Strong  of  119  white  and  120  colored 
pupils  in  the  public  schools  of  Columbia,  S.  C,  it  was  found  by 
means  of  the  Binet  tests  that,  in  their  mental  growth  and  develop- 
ment, 25.2  per  cent,  of  the  w^hite  and  60.8  per  cent,  of  the  colored 
were  below  age;  42.9  per  cent,  of  the  white  and  30  per  cent,  of  the 
colored  were  at  age ;  and  28.6  per  cent,  of  the  white  and  9.2  per  cent, 
of  the  colored  were  above  age.  "From  another  point  of  view,"  the 
report  says,  "it  appears  that  for  the  colored  60  per  cent,  of  the  tests 
are  too  difficult ;  20  per  cent,  too  easy ;  and  20  per  cent,  right.  For 
the  white  25.7  per  cent,  of  the  tests  are  too  difficult;  25.7  per  cent, 
too  easy;  and  48  per  cent,  right." 

"When  mental  tests  are  thus  applied  to  groups  of  pupils  of  the 
same  grade,  it  appears  that  the  white  pupils  have  made  more  satisfac- 
tory attainments.     "Whether  measured  by  teachers'  marks,   or  by 

*  Journal  of  Educational  Psychology,  June,  1913. 


At. 

Per  Cent. 

Av.  Aee 

No. 

Per  Cent. 

Age 

25 

7.04 

2,328 

44 

8.2 

11 

8.7 

9,909 

17 

10.4 

14 

10.0 

776 

14 

11.6 

13 

11.1 

465 

9 

12.4 

9 

12.0 

288 

5 

13.3 

8 

12.8 

209 

4 

14.1 

7 

13.8 

134 

3 

14.9 

5 

14.6 

71 

1 

15.7 

15.0 

68- 

ri6.0 

15.5 



— 

8 

16.3 

21 

3 

17.0 

17.0 

32 

18.0 

50  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  TEE  AMERICAN  NEGBO 

mental  tests,  or  by  their  distribution  through  the  grades  by  ages  or 
per  cents.,  the  relatively  slow  progress  of  the  colored  pupils  seems  to 
be  the  constant  result. 

In  part  explanation  of  this  situation  may  be  adduced  the  fact  that 
the  colored  schools  are  much  inferior  in  organization,  administration, 
and  equipment.  Teachers  are  poorly  paid,  are  insufficient  in  num- 
bers, are  not  well  trained  for  the  service,  and  are  lacking  in  many 
of  the  facilities  for  successful  work.  These  are  mere  externals,  how- 
ever, for  which  remedies  may  be  easily  provided.  We  are  prone  to 
attribute  too  large  a  part  of  our  educational  failure  to  their  exist- 
ence, and  are  disappointed  with  our  small  improvement  in  results 
when  they  are  removed.  It  has  been  shown  that  the  external  circum- 
stances play  a  relatively  smaller  part,  and  heredity  a  relatively 
greater  part,  in  individual  development  and  efficiency,  than  was  for- 
merly supposed.  Genius,  mediocrity,  imbecility,  are  fundamentally 
matters  of  birth,  and  not  of  education  or  training.  Another  great 
drawback  to  the  teacher's  work,  it  may  here  be  pointed  out,  is  that 
the  social  and  economic  ideals  of  the  colored  race  are  not  such  as  to 
inspire  effort  and  perseverance  in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  It 
would  thus  seem  that  the  weight  of  both  physical  and  social  heredity 
falls  heavily  upon  the  teacher's  hands.  If  under  the  most  favorable 
circumstances,  and  with  a  relatively  close  selection  of  pupils,  we  meet, 
as  our  study  has  shown,  with  serious  retardation  in  the  education  of 
the  colored  race,  this  fact  ought  to  serve  to  show  how  great  the 
burden  is  w^hich  rests  upon  many  communities  in  training  this  ele- 
ment of  their  citizenship  for  social,  civil,  and  industrial  efficiency. 


CHAPTER    VI 

Conclusion 

It  has  already  been  stated  that  one  of  the  main  objects  of  this 
study  of  racial  groups  of  high  school  pupils  was  to  compare  the  re- 
sults of  mental  work  done  under  like  circumstances  of  age,  environ- 
ment, and  previous  training,  to  see  what  bearing  they  might  have 
upon  the  question  of  racial  mental  differences.  It  is  understood  that 
such  differences  are  differences  of  degree  and  not  of  kind.  Mental 
differences  between  races,  as  between  individuals,  are  quantitative, 
not  qualitative.  The  fundamental  likeness  of  the  minds  of  all  human 
groups  is  assumed.  The  unity  of  the  human  species  is  an  accepted 
doctrine  of  modern  anthropology.  Everywhere  man  possesses  the 
essentially  human  mental  traits  of  abstract  ideation,  articulate  speech, 
reasoning,  imagination,  and  artistic  creation. 

The  human  species  is  separated  into  several  well-marked  physical 
types,  or  races.  Keane  says :  ' '  The  four  main  divisions  of  mankind 
are  thus  seen  to  have  been  evolved  independently  in  their  several 
zones  from  four  Pleistocene  ancestral  groups  of  somewhat  uniform 
physical  type,  and  all  sprang  from  a  common  Pliocene  prototype."^ 
We  assume  then,  in  accordance  with  the  teachings  of  present  day 
anthropology,  that  all  these  types  have  descended  from  a  common 
ancestral  stock;  and,  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  heredity,  have 
departed  from  this  ancestral  stock  more  or  less  widely  under  the  in- 
fluence of  environment  and  the  f)rinciples  of  survival.  The  essen- 
tially human  instincts  and  capacities,  acquired  already  by  the  com- 
mon progenitor,  have  been  preserved  in  all  the  races,  and  constitute 
their  specific  mental  likeness  and  unity.  Such  deviations  in  physical 
features  and  mental  traits  as  have  been  brought  about  by  the  in- 
fluence of  widely  different  geographic  conditions,  acting  upon  a 
modifiable  heredity  through  geologic  epochs  of  time,  constitute  their 
racial  differences.  Those  groups  most  nearly  allied  in  physical  and 
mental  traits  are  probably  more  recent  differentiations  of  type,  and 
may  represent  secondary,  np  even  more  diverse,  branchings  from  the 
primitive  parent  stock. 

It  is  not  possible  that  any  one  of  the  races  has  remained  on  the 
level  of  development  of  the  original  type.  Evolution,  adjustment, 
progress  is  the  law  of  life  of  species.     Races  either  developed  or 

1" The  World's  People,"  p.  5. 

51 


52  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  TEE  AMERICAN  NEGRO 

disappeared.  Neither  would  it  be  safe  to  assume  that  different 
human  groups  have  developed,  under  the  stimulus  of  widely  different 
environmental  conditions,  either  in  the  same  direction  or  at  the  same 
rate.  So  different  are  the  conditions  of  contour,  soil,  and  climate, 
and  all  the  other  local  agencies  that  are  known  to  affect  the  evolution 
of  species  and  types  that  it  would  be  contrary  to  all  analogy  were 
there  not  found  to  be  considerable  diversities  in  both  the  bodily  and 
mental  constitution  of  the  races  of  men.  Also  it  is  entirely  probable 
that  each  race  has  progressed  farther  than  any  other,  from  the 
original  human  prototype,  along  the  lines  of  its  own  peculiar  develop- 
ment. Kacial  diversities,  rather  than  uniformities,  are  what  the  laws 
of  heredity  and  evolution  would  naturally  lead  us  to  expect. 

Now  if  the  races  constitute  a  single  zo-ological  species,  and  have 
descended  from  a  common  progenitor  in  accordance  with  the  same 
biological  laws,  the  question  arises  as  to  whether  or  not  they  have 
arrived  at  the  same  plane  of  evolutionary  bodily  and  mental  fitness. 
In  the  processes  of  evolution  that  have  brought  about  wide  diver- 
gences in  physical  type,  have  such  intellectual  changes  transpired  as 
would  justify  the  conclusion  that  the  races  are  on  mentally  different 
levels  of  development?  As  Brinton  puts  the  question,  "Are  there 
psychological  distinctions  separating  the  sub-species  of  man  as  clearly 
as  those  of  his  physical  economy  ?"2 

The  relative  mental  capacity  of  races,  is  a  question  that  has  long 
been  of  absorbing  interest.  Whether  or  not  there  is  essential  intel- 
lectual equality  or  inequality  among  them,  is  in  reality  a  problem  as 
yet  unsolved.  The  present  chapter  will  attempt  a  brief  survey  of  the 
existing  status  of  our  knowledge  upon  this  subject,  with  a  statement 
of  the  view  to  which  the  data  presented  in  this  study  is  thought  to 
point. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  contributions  which  the  races  have 
made  to  human  progress  and  culture  have  differed  greatly.  The  his- 
tory of  civilization  is  the  history  of  relatively  few  peoples.  But  two 
very  different  factors  may  evidently  have  shared  in  effecting  this 
result:  environment  and  heredity.  Has  then  this  difference  in  the 
rate  of  social  development  been  due  to  differences  in  external  stimuli, 
or  to  differences  in  internal  capacity  for  response?  This  is  a  ques- 
tion on  which  there  is  still  a  diversity  of  opinion. 

Plainly  the  external  factor  can  not  be  overlooked  in  any  satisfac- 
tory consideration  of  a  people's  growth.  Nothing  can  be  more  cer- 
tain than  that  the  progress  which  a  nation  makes  in  social  evolution 
is  due  in  a  very  large  measure  to  its  geographic  environment.  The 
broad  and  fertile  valleys  of  the  Tigris,  Euphrates,  and  Nile  undoubt- 

* ' '  The  Basis  of  Social  Eelations, ' '  p.  157. 


CONCLUSION  53 

edly  bore  a  close  relation  to  the  early  rise  and  progress  of  civiliza- 
tion in  those  regions,  and  the  rapid  development  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion has  a  geographic  basis  in  soil,  climate,  and  natural  resources, 
in  the  absence  of  which  it  could  not  be  explained.  Certainly  a  suffi- 
cient reason  for  differences  in  the  degree  of  progress  made  by  dif- 
ferent human  groups  may  often  be  found  in  geographic  conditions, 
even  were  the  capacity  for  inward  response  supposed  to  be  the  same. 
But  the  existence  of  this  fact  neither  proves  nor  disproves  that 
different  races  may  be  gifted  differently  with  natural  hereditary  en- 
dowments. Under  the  influence  of  more  or  less  favorable  environ- 
ments, equal  progress  may  have  been  made  by  races  differing  widely 
in  capacity,  and  races  not  differing  in  capacity  may  have  attained  to 
very  different  degrees  of  civilization  and  culture.  It  is  not  safe 
to  pass  judgment  upon  the  intellectual  capacity  or  possibilities 
of  a  race  or  people  merely  from  a  consideration  of  the  position  which 
it  has  attained  in  the  scale  of  social  progress. 

To  determine  whether  the  races  of  men  do  actually  differ  in  the 
possibilities  of  mental  development  which  are  transmitted  to  them 
by  physical  heredity  is  quite  a  complicated  problem.  It  amounts  to 
determining  whether  or  not  they  have  arrived  at  the  same  level,  not 
on  the  scale  of  culture,  but  on  the  scale  of  organic  and  mental  evolu- 
tion ;  and  if  they  are  on  the  same  level  of  evolution,  but  on  slightly 
different  lines  of  development,  whether  or  not  their  respective  lines  of 
development  are  equally  favorable  to  efficiency  and  survival  in  the 
modern  civilized  world. 

It  may  here  be  said  that  the  weight  of  authority  among  anthropol- 
ogists has  hitherto  been  on  the  side  of  an  inequality  in  the  degree  of 
evolution  and  in  the  inheritance  of  native  capacity  among  the  races. 
Even  Waitz,  who  advocated  so  strongly  the  specific  unity  of  the 
human  mind  said,  "The  proposition  has  been  often  defended,  that 
there  were  no  differences  whatever  in  the  mental  endowment  of 
races,  that  mental  dispositions  .  .  .  are  alike  in  all  races,  that  their 
development  depended  entirely  on  surrounding  nature  and  on  educa- 
tion. .  .  .  But  the  failure  of  attempts  to  educate  the  little  children 
of  some  savages  proves,  at  any  rate,  that  there  is  no  absolute  equality 
of  mental  disposition  either  among  peoples  generally,  or  among  indi- 
viduals of  the  same  people."^  Haddon  says:  "The  three  great 
groups  of  mankind — the  white,  yellow,  and  black  races — all  prob- 
ably are  divergences  from  the  same  unknown  ancestral  stock.  They 
have  severally  specialized  along  different  lines  of  evolution,  and  dif- 
ferent traits  of  their  organization  have  specialized  in  different  degrees 
and  in  different  directions.  ...  Of  course  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 

'"Anthropology,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  321. 


5i  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBIC  AN  NEGRO 

on  the  whole,  the  white  race  has  progressed  beyond  the  black  race. '  '* 
Authorities  could  easily  be  multiplied  who  regard  racial  differ- 
ences in  mental  traits  as  founded  upon  differences  in  organic  or 
physiological  evolution.  Weighty  authority  may,  however,  be  cited 
with  quite  a  different  view.  Ratzel  says :  "  It  may  be  safely  asserted 
that  the  study  of  comparative  ethnology  in  recent  years  has  tended 
to  diminish  the  weight  of  traditionally-accepted  views  of  anthropol- 
ogists as  to  racial  distinctions.  ...  It  is  civilization  alone  which  can 
draw  any  boundary  between  us  and  the  'natural'  races.  We  may 
declare  in  the  most  decided  manner  that  the  conception  of  'natural' 
races  involves  nothing  anthropological  or  physiological,  but  is  purely 
one  of  ethnography  and  civilization.  Natural  races  are  races  poor  in 
culture.  The  gap  which  differences  of  civilization  create  between 
two  groups  of  human  beings  is  in  truth  quite  independent  of  differ- 
ences in  their  mental  endowments."^  To  the  same  effect  Professor 
Thomas  says:  "The  fundamental  explanation  of  the  differences  of  the 
mental  life  of  two  groups  is  not  that  the  capacity  of  the  brain  to  do 
work  is  different,  but  that  the  attention  is  not  in  the  two  cases  stim- 
ulated and  engaged  along  the  same  lines.  ...  Of  two  groups  having 
equal  mental  endowment,  one  group  may  outstrip  the  other  by  the 
mere  dominance  of  incident.  .  .  .  The  most  significant  fact  for  white 
development  is  the  emergence  among  the  Greeks  of  a  number  of 
eminent  men  who  developed  logic,  the  experimental  method,  and 
philosophic  interest,  and  fixed  in  their  group  the  habit  of  looking 
behind  the  incident  for  the  general  law."^ 

It  is  therefore  plain  that  so  far  as  scholarly  authority  is  con- 
cerned, there  are  two  very  different  views  as  to  the  real  cause  of  the 
difference  in  progress  made  by  races  and  peoples  in  different  quarters 
of  the  globe.  The  older  anthropologists,  as  well  as  many  of  those  of 
the  present  day,  hold  to  the  view  of  the  substantial  inequality  of 
races,  as  of  individuals,  in  hereditary  mental  endowments;  while 
many  other  serious  thinkers  of  the  day  affirm,  with  apparently  equal 
assurance,  the  essential  equality  of  the  races  in  hereditary  mental 
I  gifts,  holding  that  whatever  differences  are  manifested  in  mental 
capacity  are  attributable  solely  to  inequality  of  opportunity. 

Now  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  the  inequality  of  opportunity 
or  about  its  marked  effect  upon  the  progress  of  individuals  and  peo- 
ples. But  to  establish  this  latter  position,  it  would  be  necessary  not 
only  to  show  that  it  is  sufficient  to  account  for  all  the  facts  in  the 
mental  life  of  peoples,  but  also  to  give  some  positive  evidence  that 

*  ' '  The  Study  of  Man, ' '  p.  xxii. 

■"'History  of  Mankind,"  Vol.  I.,  pp.  18-19. 

^"Source  Book  of  Social  Origins,"  p.  169  et  seq. 


CONCLUSION  65 

mental  inequality  actually  does  not  exist  among  them.  This  latter 
requirement  is  not  met  with.  There  is  no  proof,  in  the  ease  of  dif- 
ferences in  the  mental  life  of  two  human  groups,  that  the  capacity 
of  their  brains  to  do  work  is  not  different.  True  the  situation  may 
be  explainable  as  due  to  the  "dominance  of  incident."  It  is  possi- 
ble that  in  many  cases  it  is  due  to  this  cause  alone — to  the  accidents 
of  history  and  to  favorable  peculiarities  in  the  physical  and  social 
environment — but  the  possibility  of  the  operation  of  the  other  cause 
is  ever  present.  We  do  not  believe  that  any  one  would  attempt  to 
explain  the  sudden  development  of  so  much  that  is  extraordinary  in 
the  science,  art,  and  philosophy  of  the  ancient  Greeks  \Adthout  as- 
suming the  appearance  among  them  of  a  considerable  number  of 
persons  of  that  high  order  of  ability  known  as  genius;  and  a  genius" 
is  a  person  favored  by  heredity  with  a  brain  capable  of  doing  extra-j 
ordinary  work.  It  is  the  internal  factor  of  heredity,  not  the  external 
factor  of  environment,  that  constitutes  his  distinguishing  trait.  Of 
course  the  external  factor  is  not  to  be  ignored.  Incident,  the  favor- 
able combination  of  external  circumstances,  no  doubt  plays  an  im- 
portant role  in  all  superior  human  achievements;  but  there  is  an 
internal  factor,  an  inherent  capability  of  response,  without  which 
these  high  endeavors  do  not  admit  of  explanation. 

Also  the  fact  that  the  attention  of  a  people  is  directed  and  en- 
gaged along  certain  lines,  w^hile  in  a  way  due  to  accident,  is  not  un- 
related to  its  inward  capacity  for  response.  The  direction  of  a  peo- 
ple's attention  and  effort  is  certainly  as  much  a  matter  of  internal 
organization  as  it  is  of  external  circumstance.  That  a  habit  of  look- 
ing behind  the  incident  for  the  general  law  may  be  ingrained  in  a 
people  seems  in  itself  significant  for  that  people's  inherent  aptitude. 
History  can  not  be  completely  explained  in  terms  of  geographic  caus- 
ation. It  is  indeed  the  subjective  factor — though  it  too  has  perhaps 
been  often  overemphasized — to  which  many  writers  have  attributed 
the  scientific  ascendency  and  political  dominance  of  a  few  peoples 
in  the  world. 

It  seems  quite  clear,  then,  that  the  fact  that  different  rates  of 
human  progress  and  different  degrees  of  civilization  may  be  ex- 
plained without  the  assumption  of  the  mental  inequality  of  differ- 
ent races  and  peoples  does  not  prove  such  inequality  not  to  exist. 
But  we  may  fall  into  the  opposite  error  of  supposing  that  those 
peoples  who  lead  in  civilization  and  culture  are  for  that  reason 
peoples  of  superior  mental  abilities.  This  also  does  not  of  necessity 
follow.  The  fact  of  superior  culture  may  be  due  solely  to  a  difference 
in  opportunity,  and  not  at  all  to  superior  endowment.  It  is  possible 
that  a  people  may  pass  from  barbarism  to  culture  without  increas- 
ing in  the  least  its  hereditary  mental  aptitude. 


56  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEGRO 

What  then  are  the  facts  on  which  the  anthropologist  has  endeav- 
ored to  base  a  distinction  of  races  in  mental  ability?  First  of  all, 
on  physical  features,  and  often  too,  on  features  that  bear  but  the  re- 
motest relation  to  the  mental  life.  Several  physical  features  of  the- 
negroid  races  have  been  pointed  out  as  approximating  them  more 
nearly  to  the  ape  in  both  form  and  faculty.  But  the  investigator  has 
almost  always  approached  this  problem  with  a  belief  in  the  superior- 
ity of  his  own  physical  and  mental  type ;  and  any  obvious  departure 
from  this  type  as  a  standard  has  been  adjudged  as  evidence  of  infe- 
riority. The  assumption  here  is  essentially  faulty.  As  Professor 
Boas  puts  it :  "It  seems  reasonable  to  assume  that  differences  in  the 
form  of  the  body  must  be  accompanied  by  differences  in  function, 
and  we  may  suppose  that  there  may  be  certain  peculiarities  in  the 
general  mental  tendencies  of  each  race.  Only  we  must  guard  against 
the  inference  that  divergence  from  the  European  type  is  synonymous- 
with  inferiority. '  '^ 

But  the  anthropologist  has  cited  other  facts  which  apparently 
have  a  more  direct  bearing  upon  the  subject  of  mental  inequality. 
The  brain-weight  of  the  various  races  has  been  subjected  to  numerous 
measurements,  with  the  result  that  important  racial  differences  seem 
to  appear.  A  relatively  small  brain-weight  is  found  to  be  character- 
istic of  the  negroid  races,  and  a  relatively  great  weight  of  the  white 
race,  even  when  all  other  facts  are  taken  into  consideration.  Now 
it  has  been  found  that  while  no  certain  correlation  can  be  affirmed 
between  the  size  of  the  brain  and  the  degree  of  intelligence  in 
individual  eases,  yet  when  large  groups  are  considered  some  signifi- 
cance for  intelligence  does  seem  to  attach  to  the  matter  of  size. 
Imbecility  and  idiocy  are  associated  with  small  brains,  while  the 
brain  of  eminent  men  has  been  shown  to  be  considerably  larger  on 
an  average  than  that  of  members  in  general  of  their  group.  No  one 
fails  to  overlook  the  relative  size  of  the  brain  in  explaining  man's 
superior  place  in  the  scale  of  intelligence ;  and  this  difference  in  brain 
weight  of  different  human  varieties  at  least  in  itself  suggests  a  prob- 
ability of  mental  inequality. 

It  is  believed,  however,  that  a  far  more  significant  factor  in  de- 
termining the  value  of  the  brain  as  a  psychic  organ  is  its  minute 
structure  and  organizartion.  In  the  ascending  scale  of  animal  intel- 
ligence we  find  not  only  an  increasing  relative  size  of  the  nervous 
system,  but  also  an  ever  increasing  complexity  in  its  organization. 
If  there  is  a  real  difference  in  the  mental  capacity  of  races  it  is  prob- 
ably to  be  explained  in  the  main  by  differences  of  this  character. 
That  there  are  such  structural  differences  has  long  been  the  teach- 

^ ' '  Anthropology, ' '  p.  15. 


CONCLUSION  57 

ing  of  traditional  science.  :Mandsley  holds^  that  an  examination  of 
the  different  races  of  men  shows  a  clear  correspondence  between 
intelligence  and  the  development  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres,  and 
that  the  intellectual  difference  between  the  negro  and  European  is 
accompanied  by  differences  in  the  extent  of  surface  and  in  the  struc- 
ture of  the  brain  cortex.  Quaterfages  regards^  it  as  a  well-estab- 
lished fact  that  the  number  and  complexity  of  cerebral  convolutions 
are  less  in  savage  than  in  civilized  races. 

But  one  can  hardly  escape  the  feeling  that  the  conclusions  of  the 
older  anthropologists  were  unconsciously  influenced  by  the  white 
man's  prejudices,  and  one  would  gladly  see  the  facts  ascertained  by 
the  cruder  means  of  their  day  retested  by  the  more  refined  and  pre- 
cise instruments  and  methods  of  the  modern  laboratory.  One,  there- 
fore, naturally  looks  with  expectancy  towards  the  results  of  two  im- 
portant studies  along  this  line  recently  pursued  by  trained  scientists 
in  the  laboratory  of  anatomy  at  the  Johns  Hopkins  University. 
From  a  study  of  the  brains  of  103  negroes  and  49  American  whites, 
Robert  Bennett  Bean  reached  the  following  conclusion  :^°  The  brain- 
weight  of  the  negro  is  demonstrably  smaller  than  that  of  the  Cau- 
casian ;  the  size  and  shape  of  the  front  end  of  the  brain  are  different 
in  the  two  races,  being  smaller  and  more  angular  in  the  negro;  the 
convolutions  of  the  Caucasian  brain  are  more  elaborate,  the  fissures 
deeper,  and  the  relative  amount  of  white  matter  greater;  the  front 
end  of  the  corpus  callossum,  made  up  of  fibers  which  connect  and 
associate  the  functions  of  the  frontal  lobes  of  the  two  hemispheres,  is 
relatively  greater  in  the  Caucasian. 

A  like  study  following  close  upon  that  of  Dr.  Bean  was  made  by 
Franklin  P.  Mall.  Professor  Mall  reaches  no  such  positive  conclu- 
sions and  expresses  no  such  confidence  in  his  results  as  does  Dr.  Bean. 
He  found  that  on  the  average  the  relative  percentage  of  the  frontal 
lobe  is  the  same  in  both  races,  and  says  that,  with  our  present  crude 
methods,  any  claim  that  the  negro  brain  is  more  simian  or  fcetal 
than  that  of  the  white  is  entirely  unwarranted.  He  finds  that  no 
necessary  connection  has  been  established  between  high  intelligence 
and  the  brain's  richness  in  gyri  and  sulci,  and  doubts  our  ability, 
with  the  methods  and  means  at  our  disposal,  to  find  any  anatomical 
basis  for  great  mental  ability.  He  says :  "For  the  present  the  crude- 
ness  of  our  method  will  not  permit  us  to  determine  anatomical  char- 
acters due  to  race,  sex  or  genius  and  which  if  they  exist  are  com- 
pletely masked  by  the  large  number  of  marked  individual  varia- 

»"The  Physiology  of  the  Mind,"  Ch.  11. 
•"The  Human  Species,"  p.  406. 
"See  Century,  September,  1906. 


58  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEEICAN  NEGBO 

1 

tions.  .  .  .  Arguments  for  differences  due  to  race,  sex  and  genius 
will  henceforward  need  to  be  based  upon  new  data,  really  scientific- 
ally treated  and  not  of  the  older  statements.  "^^ 

This  latter  view  brings  into  question,  and  no  doubt  deservedly,  the 
accuracy  and  correctness  of  many  of  the  conclusions  of  the  older 
physiologists  and  anthropologists  regarding  anatomical  differences 
between  races.  "Whether  the  older  views  are  entirely  without  value, 
however,  must  naturally  remain  for  the  present  an  open  question. 
The  cerebral  differences  between  negroes  and  whites  in  the  cases 
studied  at  Johns  Hopkins  have  no  doubt  been  greatly  obscured  by  the 
fact  of  race  mixture — the  negro  being  a  mixed  and  not  a  pure  type — 
and  by  the  fact  of  wide  variation  within  both  races,  necessarily  re- 
sulting in  considerable  overlapping  between  them ;  but  it  is  also  true 
no  doubt  that  these  differences  have  been  greatly  exaggerated  in  the 
past.  That  such  differences,  however,  which  have  been  so  often 
asserted  and  reiterated  by  numerous  investigators  should  be  abso- 
lutely without  foundation  seems  hardly  credible. 

Another  important  order  of  facts,  which  appears  to  have  a  sig- 
nificant bearing  upon  the  subject  of  racial  mental  differences,  is 
found  in  connection  with  the  growth  and  maturing  of  individuals 
of  different  races.  Early  maturity  is  known  to  be  related  to  climate, 
but  it  seems  also  to  be  related  to  race.  Deniker^-  says  that  there  is 
abundant  evidence  that  negroes  attain  their  maximum  height  be- 
tween eighteen  and  twenty-one,  while  men  of  the  white  race  have 
scarcely  attained  the  limit  of  their  stature  at  twenty-three.  The 
negro  would  thus  appear  to  arrive  at  bodily  maturity  two  or  more 
years  earlier  than  the  white.  This  fact  of  earlier  maturity  seems  to 
apply  with  special  reference  to  the  cranium.  The  sutures  of  the 
skull  are  simpler  in  the  negroid  races,  and  are  obliterated  by  the 
growing  together  of  the  bones  earlier  than  is  the  case  with  the  Euro- 
pean. This  premature  formation  of  a  solid  and  compact  wall  about 
the  brain  has  been  held  by  anthropologists  to  affect  its  growth  and 
to  afford  some  explanation  of  its  smaller  size  in  the  negroid  races.  It 
is  further  pointed  out  by  anthropologists  that  the  anterior  sutures  of 
the  skull  are  first  to  close  in  the  negroid  races,  a  condition  the  reverse 
of  what  obtains  in  Europeans.  If  this  be  true,  the  front  portion 
of  the  brain,  which  is  thought  to  be  concerned  with  the  higher  mental 
functions,  would  appear  to  be  the  part  whose  expansion  and  devel- 
opment are  most  affected  by  this  early  solidification  of  the  cranium. 
The  skull  of  the  negro,  like  that  of  many  European  whites,  is  doli- 
cocephalic ;  but  the  lengthening  is  said  to  be  occipital,  rather  than 

"  The  American  Journal  of  Anatomy,  Vol.  IX.,  No.  I.,  p.  32. 
""Eaces  of  Men,"  p.  107. 


CONCLUSION  59 

frontal,  "indicating  a  preponderance  of  the  lower  mental  powers."^* 
Ratzel,  describing  the  head  of  the  negro,  says:  "The  greatest  breadth 
is  to  the  back,  so  that  seen  from  above  it  is  egg-shaped,  with  the 
small  end  to  the  front.  The  forehead  is  often  well  arched  but  re- 
treating, so  that  the  broad  brow  of  the  thinker  is  impossible."" 

Apparently  correlated  with  these  facts  of  physiological  growth 
are  certain  important  observations  on  the  education  of  the  children 
of  different  races.  Tylor  says:  "The  account  generally  given  by 
European  teachers  who  have  the  children  of  lower  races  in  their 
schools  is  that  though  they  often  learn  as  well  as  white  children  up 
to  about  12  years  old,  they  then  fall  off,  and  are  left  behind  by  chil- 
dren of  the  ruling  race. '  '^^  Describing  the  psychological  characteris- 
tics of  African  natives  in  the  Banana  zone,  Dowd  says :  ' '  The  negro 
brain  develops  more  rapidly  and  matures  earlier  in  this,  than  in  any 
other  zone,  and  certainly  earlier  than  the  brain  of  the  white  man 
anywhere  .  .  .  The  children  of  this  zone,  as  of  lower  races  generally, 
are  remarkably  precocious  and  when  taught  in  school  by  the  side  of 
white  children,  often  surpass  them  up  to  the  age  of  puberty.  At 
this  period  the  negro  .  .  .  finds  it  difficult  to  keep  up  interest  in  lines 
of  study  which  require  the  inhibition  of  other  interests.  .  .  .  Waitz 
thinks  that  this  arrest  of  mental  growth  is  due  to  the  climate  and  not 
to  race  characteristics,  since  the  same  phenomenon  is  observed  among 
the  Nubians,  Egyptians,  and  Sandwich  Islanders.  The  reply  to  such 
argument  is  that  the  climate  has  produced  the  race  characteristic. '  '^® 

Observations  of  this  character  are  widely  scattered  through  both 
popular  and  scientific  literature.  The  children  of  all  alien  peoples, 
it  is  claimed,  often  show  a  capacity  to  assimilate  European  ideas 
quite  equal  to  that  of  children  of  European  parentage ;  but  on  arriv- 
ing at  the  pubertal  stage,  their  progress  as  often  seems  to  be  inter- 
rupted and  they  fall  thereafter  behind  their  white  competitors,  who 
at  this  period  of  life  experience  a  great  expansion  and  development 
of  their  mental  powers. 

The  foregoing  statements  regarding  the  physiological  growth 
and  maturity  of  individuals  of  different  races  will  doubtless  have  to 
be  subjected  to  the  more  rigid  tests  of  present-day  scientific  methods 
before  it  can  be  known  just  what  measure  of  truth  and  error  they 
contain.  But  it  is  hard  to  escape  the  conclusion  that  they  are  not 
without  some  basis  in  fact.  It  must  be  noted,  however,  that  so  far 
as  school  reports  bear  on  the  matter,'  there  is  no  indication  of  any 

^Brinton,  "Eaces  and  Peoples,"  p.  21. 
""History  of  Mankind,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  317. 
^""Anthropology,"  p.  74. 
""The  Negro  Eaces,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  360. 


60  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  TEE  AMERICAN  NEGEO 

period  during  which  the  progress  of  colored  pupils  in  American 
schools  equals  or  surpasses  that  of  the  whites.  The  contrary  seems 
to  be  true.  The  colored  pupils  are  shown  to  do  relatively  poorer 
work  in  all  grades  of  the  school  course. 

Also  in  themselves,  and  apart  from  any  other  considerations,  we 
might  not  be  able  to  state  the  bearing  of  the  foregoing  observations 
on  physical  and  mental  development  upon  the  question  of  racial 
mental  differences.  Professor  Boas  thinks  that  even  a  shorter  period 
of  reaching  maturity  as  in  the  case  of  the  negro  or  other  races  may 
be  without  significance.  He  says:  "We  have  not  even  evidence  that 
would  prove  that  a  shorter  period  of  development  must  be  unfavor- 
able in  its  results."^''  But  this  is  contrary  to  our  current  scientific 
and  educational  doctrine  regarding  human  educability  and  the 
lengthened  period  of  infancy  and  youth.  Oppenheim  states  that 
"the  higher  the  organism  the  longer  does  it  require  to  attain  a  full 
development  of  its  capabilities."^^  The  importance  of  the  length- 
ened period  of  infancy  in  human  and  animal  evolution,  making  pos- 
sible a  period  of  learning  and  of  profiting  from  individual  expe- 
rience, is  a  fully  recognized  biological  principle.  Time  is  a  funda- 
mental requisite  in  the  development  of  any  of  the  higher  forms  of 
life — on  the  physiological  side,  for  the  maturing  of  a  complex  but 
highly  plastic  neuro-muscular  organism,  and  on  the  mental  side,  for 
the  assimilation  of  a  knowledge  of  the  complicated  details  of  the 
environment  to  which  it  must  react.  Certainly  the  burden  of  proof 
ought  to  be  upon  those  who  make  the  contrary  contention,  and  the 
evidence  must  show  that  the  shorter  period  of  attaining  to  physiolog- 
ical maturity  in  a  race  is  not  in  any  way  unfavorable  in  its  results. 
Donaldson,  speaking  of  the  different  ages  in  individuals  and  classes 
at  which  the  brain  ceases  to  grow,  expresses  the  opinion  that  "we 
might  fairly  expect  that  it  would  be  continued  for  the  longest  time 
in  those  most  favored.  "^^  He  also  thinks  that  the  investigations  of 
Venn  on  the  cranial  growth  of  Cambridge  students  point  in  this 
direction.  A  longer  period  of  attaining  maturity  would  seem  to 
mean  a  longer  period  of  plasticity  and  educability.  It  would  seem 
to  indicate  in  both  individuals  and  races  a  capacity  for  adaptation 
to  a  higher  and  more  complex  environment. 

Of  two  races,  differing  materially  in  the  period  of  growth,  it 
would  seem  natural  to  infer  that  the  one  whose  growth  continued 
longest  would  be  capable  of  a  higher  and  wider  mental  adjustment, 
and  would  possess  greater  possibilities  of  advancement  and  culture. 

^'"The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man,"  p.  269. 
'« ' '  The  Development  of  the  Child, ' '  p.  207. 
""Growth  of  the  Brain,"  p.  111. 


CONCLUSION  61 

The  opinions  expressed  in  connection  with  attempts  to  educate  alien 
races  tend  to  confirm  this  view.  Though  based  upon  observation, 
these  opinions,  it  would  seem,  can  not  be  wholly  without  validity. 
Up  to  the  age  of  puberty,  the  progress  made  by  different  races  is 
reported  to  be  largely  the  same.  If  there  is  at  this  point  a  falling 
off  in  the  capacity  of  certain  races  in  mental  ability,  we  should  ex- 
pect to  find  it  correlated  with  some  sort  of  physiological  change. 
Donaldson  says:  ''It  is  to  be  anticipated  that  one  great  difference 
in  races  will  be  found  to  lie  in  the  extent  of  growth  and  organization 
in  the  nervous  system  after  birth,  and  especially  after  puberty. 
Should  it  turn  out  on  further  examination  that  some  of  the  lower 
races  lose  their  capacity  for  later  training  after  adolescence,  we 
should  look  with  interest  for  the  changes  in  the  cerebral  cortex  in 
order  to  determine  whether  growth  there  practically  ceased  at 
puberty."-" 

Though  our  knowledge  of  cerebral  anatomy  is  yet  far  from  a 
solution  of  so  refined  a  problem  as  this,  still  considerable  progress  in 
this  direction  is  being  made.     ''Kaes  believes  that  in  the  second  and 
third  association  layers  of  Meynert  he  has  found  the  part  of  the 
brain  in  which,  during  the  progress  of  civilization,  improvement  espe- 
cially occurred.     It  is  certainly  suggestive  that  the  areas  which  he 
thinks  are  preeminently  the  region  of  race  cerebration  coincide  with 
those  in  which  he  also  seems  to  have  discovered  a  new  growth  of  asso- 
ciation fibers,  beginning  in  civilized  boys  and  girls  at  about  eighteen 
years  of  age.     Both  Kaes  and  Vulpius  agree  that  these  same  second 
and  third  layers,  which  the  former  is  convinced  are  deficient  among 
primitive  peoples  in  association  fibers,  are  undeveloped  in  children.  "^^ 
Observations  of  this  sort  regarding  cranial  growth  and  structure, 
if  verified,  would  afford  a  physiological  basis  and  explanation  for  the 
great  expansion  of  mental  powers  in  white  children  during  the  adol- 
escent period,  and  for  the  cessation  of  mental  development  said  to  be 
met  with  in  certain  other  races.     From  the  point  of  view  of  evolu- 
tion, such  differences  are  not  at  all  unexpected.     Although  the  races 
are  supposedly  descended  from  a  common  progenitor,  their  physical 
traits  have  been  so  profoundly  modified  by  the  action  of  the  environ- 
ment and  of  heredity  that  the  growth  and  development  of  so  impor- 
tant an  organ  as  the  brain  could  hardly  have  escaped  their  trans- 
forming influence."     In  fact  it  is  the  nervous  system  that  must  have 
undergone  the  most  significant  changes  during  the  period  of  purely 
human  evolution.     For  evolution  in  man  has  been  characterized  by 

*»"The  Growth  of  the  Brain,"  p.  349. 

"Swift,  "Mind  in  the  Making,"  p.  221. 

^^'See  Morris,  "Man  and  His  Ancestor,"  Ch.  X. 


62  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEGBO 

mental  rather  than  by  physical  adjustment,  and  real  advance  has 
been  for  the  most  part  along  the  line  of  perfecting  the  brain  as  an 
organ  of  thought.  As  the  higher  mental  functions  were  man's  latest 
acquisitions,  it  naturally  follows  that  the  final  steps  in  his  organic 
evolution  were  the  growth  and  development  of  those  finer  neural 
processes  and  structures  on  which  these  mental  functions  depend. 
As  the  several  races  developed  separately  under  the  influence  of 
widely  different  environments,  it  would  be  miraculous  to  expect  their 
mental  or  physical  evolution  to  be  precisely  the  same.  If  different 
environments  made  different  demands  upon  the  intelligence  of  the 
inhabitants  to  meet  the  conditions  of  existence — and  no  other  assump- 
tion seems  reasonable — then  peoples  with  different  orders  of  intelli- 
gence unavoidably  arose.  Not  only  then  does  it  seem  admissible  to 
assume  the  existence  of  mental  inequality  between  the  races  to  ac- 
count for  various  facts  in  our  human  relationships,  but  it  would 
seem  that  apriori  considerations,  in  view  of  our  knowledge  of  human 
evolution,  would  make  no  other  assumption  tenable.  Moreover  it  is 
naturally  to  be  expected  that  when  our  methods  and  tests  are  suffi- 
ciently refined  to  enable  us  to  discover  the  minutest  differences,  it 
will  be  found  that  it  is  in  these  higher  and  more  recently  acquired 
mental  capacities  that  races  will  most  likely  exhibit  the  greatest 
diversities. 

But  just  what  the  mental  differences  between  races  are  can  be 
ultimately  determined  only  by  some  appropriate  means  of  accurately 
measuring  mental  functions.  Some  objective  and  reliable  way  of 
making  mental  measurements  must  first  be  found.  Until  recently 
our  knowledge  of  racial  mental  differences  was  based  either  upon 
mere  observations  of  the  behavior  of  individuals,  or  upon  a  compara- 
tive study  of  their  relative  achievements  in  the  various  fields  of 
human  activity.  But  judgments  from  mere  impressions  are  inad- 
equate to  the  demands  of  science,  and  are  often  found  to  be  entirely 
erroneous.  Real  progress  can  be  made  in  this  field  only  by  a  direct 
application  of  psychological  tests  or  some  other  method  of  actually 
measuring  mental  phenomena.  Quantitative  studies  of  mental  proc- 
esses have  been  actively  pursued  since  the  days  of  Fechner  and 
Hehnholz,  and  their  methods  have  been  applied  in  a  few  important 
instances  to  a  comparative  study  of  the  minds  of  races. 

The  most  noteworthy  movement  of  this  sort  was  the  Cambridge 
Anthropological  Expedition  made  in  1891  for  the  purpose  of  study- 
ing by  the  methods  of  experimental  psychology  the  mental  charac- 
teristics of  the  natives  of  the  Torres  Straits  and  the  Fly  River  district 
of  British  New  Guinea.  This  part  of  the  work  of  the  expedition 
was  in  the  hands  of  three  trained  psychologists :  W.  H.  R.  Rivers,  C. 


CONCLUSION  63 

S.  ]\Iyers,  and  W.  McDougall.  Various  experiments  and  measure- 
ments were  made  on  vision,  hearing,  smell,  taste,  tactile  acuity,  the 
sensibility  to  pain,  motor  speed  and  accuracy,  mental  fatigue,  estima- 
tions of  time  intervals,  memory,  etc.  The  results  of  this  work  have 
served  to  dispel  many  long-standing  misconceptions  regarding  the 
sense  acuity  of  savage  peoples.  The  general  conclusion  derived  from 
experiment  is  "that  the  visual  acuity  of  savage  and  half-civilized 
peoples,  though  superior  to  that  of  the  normal  European,  is  not  so 
in  any  marked  degree."-^  Myers  says:  "The  tales  which  have  so 
frequently  been  told  by  travellers  about  the  marvellous  acuity  of 
vision  among  primitive  peoples  unquestionably  depend,  not  on  a 
vastly  superior  visual  acuity  but  on  the  power  of  interpreting  signs 
which  are  meaningless  to  the  European  and  hence  escape  his  notice. 
For  when  the  E-test  ...  is  applied  to  primitive  folk,  the  results 
show  a  visual  acuity  which  is  not  very  different  from,  though  per- ' 
haps  on  the  whole  slightly  superior  to,  the  acuity  of  Europeans  liv- 
ing a  corresponding  out-of-door  life.  .  .  .  Now  and  again  individuals  ' 
have  been  examined  whose  acuity  exceeds  four  times  the  so-called 
normal,  and  it  may  be  that  such  cases  are  somewhat  commoner 
among  primitive  than  among  civilized  peoples."'* 

The  tests  for  color  vision  show  certain  important  differences.^^ 
It  was  found  that  the  order  of  sensitivity  to  different  colors  is  differ- 
ent for  the  English  and  the  Murray  Islanders.  Greater  variation  is 
noted  among  the  English.  Also  the  ordinary  form  of  color-blindness, 
in  which  red  and  green  are  confused,  does  not  exist  or  is  very  rare 
among  the  Murray  Islanders, — a  fact  which  holds  true  of  many  other 
primitive  peoples. 

In  auditory  acuity  the  results  were  different  from  what  tradi- 
tionar  accounts  of  the  keen  sense  of  hearing  among  savage  peoples 
w^ould  lead  us  to  expect.  From  the  measurements  made,  "one  is 
forced  to  conclude  that  the  general  auditory  acuity  of  the  islanders 
of  the  Torres  Straits  is  inferior  to  that  of  Europeans.  "^^ 

The  comparative  study  of  tactile  acuity  and  sensitivity  to  pain 
show  also  important  differences.  "The  figures  indicate  that  in  the  \ 
skin  areas  tested  the  Murray  Islanders  have  a  threshold  of  tactile  dis- 
crimination of  which  the  value,  in  terms  of  distance  of  two  points 
touched,  is  just  about  one  half  that  of  Englishmen,  or  we  may  say 
in  other  words,  that  their  power  of  tactile  discrimination  is  about 

^  W.  H.  R.  Rivers,  Report  of  the  Cambridge  Anthropological  Expedition 
Vol.  II.,  p.  42. 

''"Introduction  to  Experimental  Psychology,"  p.  94. 

"Reports  of  the  Cambridge  Anthropological  Expedition,  Vol.  II.,  p.  70  et  seq. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  148. 


64  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMEBICAN  NEGRO 

double  that  of  Englishmen.""  On  sensitivity  to  pain,  the  Report 
reads  as  follows :  ' '  Comparing  Murray  men  with  Englishmen,  we  see 
that  while  their  average  threshold  of  tactile  discrimination  is  only 
about  half  as  high,  their  average  threshold  for  skin-pain  (produced 
by  pressure)  is  nearly  double  that  of  Englishmen;  or  expressing  the 
difference  in  other  words  and  more  loosely,  we  may  say  of  these 
Murray  men  that  their  sense  of  touch  is  twice  as  delicate  as  that  of 
Englishmen,  while  their  susceptibility  to  pain  is  hardly  half  as 
great."-*     Other  experiments  tend  to  corroborate  these  results. 

There  seems  therefore  to  be  reasonable  experimental  evidence 
that  primitive  peoples  are  superior  to  civilized  peoples  in  tactile, 
and  inferior  to  them  in  pain,  sensitivity.  Primitive  man  seems  also 
to  be  superior  in  his  capacity  to  discriminate  lifted  weights.  Com- 
menting on  these  facts  Myers  says:  "There  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  primitive  man  has  had  more  experience  in  discriminating 
touches  and  weights ;  quite  the  contrary  is  probably  true.  We  must 
be  content  at  present  merely  with  stating  the  results  without  ven- 
turing on  an  explanation  of  them."^^ 

Another  important  experimental  study  of  several  different  racial 
groups  was  made  by  Professor  R.  S.  Woodworth  at  the  St.  Louis 
Exposition  in  1904.  No  published  report  of  his  work  has  appeared, 
but  a  summary  of  his  results  and  conclusions  were  given  in  an 
address  before  the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science  at  its  meeting  at  Boston  in  December,  1909.  This  address 
was  published  in  Science,  February,  1910,  under  the  title  of  "Racial 
Differences  in  Mental  Traits."  The  discussion  is  characterized 
throughout  by  valuable  observations  on  both  methods  and  results. 

In  tests  on  vision,  Professor  Woodworth  found  that  the  Indians  and 
-T'ilipinos  took  the  highest  rank,  from  65  to  75  per  cent,  of  them  ex- 
'celling  the  average  of  the  whites.  He  says:  "We  may  perhaps  con- 
'clude  that  eyesight  is  a  function  which  varies  somewhat  in  efficiency 
"with  differences  of  race,  though  with  much  overlapping."  The 
"whites  were  found  superior  in  hearing,  which  is  regarded  as  probably 
due  largely  to  the  training  and  hygienic  influence  of  civilized  life. 
So  far  as  tests  have  been  made,  they  seenl  to  indicate  that  the  acuity 
of  smell  is  about  the  same  for  all  races. 

He  reports  that  experiments  on  the  pain-sense  of  Indians,  Fili- 
pinos, Africans  and  Ainu,  made  by  himself  and  Dr.  Bruner,  are  in 
accord  with  the  results  of  ]\IcDougall  and  Llyers.  He  shows,  how- 
ever, that  some  doubt  attaches  to  these  measurements.     To  test  sen- 

'«IUd.,  p.  192. 
^Ihid.,  p.  195. 
^ ' '  Introduction  to  Experimental  Psychology, ' '  p.  102. 


CONCLUSION  G5 

sitivity  to  pain  a  gradually  increasing  pressure  is  applied  to  the  skin 
and  the  subject  tested  notes  at  just  what  point  the  sense  of  pain 
arises.  Professor  Woodworth  thinks  that  the  fact  of  incipient  pain 
was  likely  judged  differently  by  different  peoples.  He  says:  "Most 
whites,  under  the  condition  of  the  test,  are  satisfied  with  slight  dis- 
comfort, while  my  impression  in  watching  the  Indians  was  that  they 
w^ere  waiting  to  be  really  hurt.  The  racial  difference  would  accord- 
ingly be  one  in  the  conception  of  pain  or  the  understanding  of  the 
test,  rather  than  in  the  pain  sense." 

Bearing  on  color  vision,  he  says:  "We  were  able  to  try  on  repre- 
sentatives of  a  number  of  races  a  difficult  matching  test  .  .  .  with  the 
result  that  all  other  races  were  inferior  to  the  whites  in  their  general 
success  at  color  matching."  And  on  the  speed  of  simple  motor  per- 
formances: "The  familiar  tapping-test,  which  measures  the  rate  at 
which  the  brain  can  at  will  discharge  a  series  of  impulses  to  the  same 
muscle,  was  tried  on  a  Mdde  variety  of  folk  without  disclosing  marked 
differences  between  groups.  The  differences  were  somewhat  greater 
when  the  movement,  besides  being  rapid,  had  to  be  accurate  in  aim. 
The  Eskimos  excelled  all  others  in  this  latter  test,  while  the  poorest 
record  was  made  by  the  Patagonians  and  the  Cocopa  Indians.  The 
Filipinos  seemed  undeniably  superior  to  the  whites  in  this  test, 
though,  of  course,  with  plenty  of  overlapping."  Righthandedness 
proved  to  be  about  the  same  for  all  races. 

Professor  Woodworth  reaches  the  conclusion  that  "We  are  prob- 
ably justified  in  inferring  from  the  results  cited  that  the  sensory  and 
motor  processes,  and  the  elementary  brain  activities,  though  differing 
in  degree  from  one  individual  to  another,  are  about  the  same  from 
one  race  to  another." 

Of  greater  interest,  however,  are  his  efforts  to  measure  the  higher 
mental  processes.  He  says:  "A  good  test  for  intelligence  would  be 
much  appreciated  by  the  comparative  psychologist,  since  in  spite  of 
equal  standing  in  such  rudimentary  matters  as  the  senses  and  bodily 
movement,  attention,  and  the  simpler  sorts  of  judgment,  it  might 
still  be  that  great  differences  in  mental  efficiency  existed  between 
different  groups  of  men.  Probably  no  single  test  could  do  justice  to 
so  complex  a  trait  as  intelligence.  Two  important  features  of  in- 
telligent action  are  quickness  in  seizing  the  key  to  a  novel  situation 
and  firmness  in  limiting  activity  to  the  right  direction,  and  suppress- 
ing acts  which  are  obviously  useless  for  the  purpose  in  hand.  A 
simple  test  which  calls  for  these  qualities  is  the  so-called  'form  test' 
.  .  .  This  test  was  tried  on  representatives  of  several  different  races, 
and  considerable  differences  appeared.  As  between  whites,  Indians, 
Eskimos,  Ainu,  Filipinos  and  Singhalese,   the   average   differences 


66  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEGRO 

were  small,  and  much  overlapping  occurred.  As  between  these 
groups,  however,  and  the  Igorot  and  Negrito  from  the  Philippines 
and  a  few  reputed  Pygmies  from  the  Congo,  the  average  differences 
were  great  and  the  overlapping  was  small.  Another  rather  similar 
test  for  intelligence,  which  was  tried  on  some  of  these  groups,  gave 
them  the  same  relative  rank.  The  results  of  the  test  agreed  closely 
with  the  general  impressions  left  on  the  minds  of  the  experimenters 
by  considerable  association  with  the  people  tested.  And  finally  the 
relative  size  of  the  cranium,  as  indicated,  roughly,  by  the  product 
of  its  three  external  dimensions,  agreed  closely  in  these  groups  with 
their  appearance  of  intelligence,  and  with  their  standing  in  the  form 
test.  If  the  results  could  be  taken  at  their  face  value,  they  would 
indicate  differences  of  intelligence  between  races,  giving  such  groups 
as  the  Pygmy  and  Negrito  a  low  station  as  compared  with  the  most 
of  mankind." 

While  Professor  Woodworth  inclines  to  the  view  that  in  sense 
acuity,  motor  activity,  and  the  simpler  mental  process,  the  races  are 
practically  on  the  same  footing,  his  tests,  so  far  as  they  go,  seem  to 
indicate  wider  differences  in  general  intelligence  and  the  higher 
mental  processes.  They  apparently  separate  the  races  into  two 
general  classes  of  ability,  with  small  average  differences  and  much 
overlapping  between  the  various  races  of  each  class,  but  with  large 
average  differences  and  little  overlapping  between  the  races  belong- 
ing to  the  two  different  classes.  Now  it  is  entirely  probable,  if  tests 
could  be  sufficiently  refined  and  graduated,  that  we  should  be  able, 
by  their  use,  to  arrange  all  the  races  in  'a  series  of  relative  mental 
ability  as  indicated  by  the  tests.  If  wide  mental  differences  are 
found  to  exist  between  some  races,  we  may  all  the  more  readily 
anticipate  that  at  least  small  differences  Mall  be  found  to  exist 
between  others.  On  purely  hypothetical  grounds  then,  we  would 
be  led  to  believe  in  the  possibility  of  arranging  all  the  races  in  a 
series  according  to  relative  mental  ability;  and  the  facts,  so  far  as 
they  are  known,  tend  to  establish  this  hypothesis.  The  measurements 
of  mental  functions  that  have  hitherto  been  made  have  tended  to 
prove  the  existence  of  racial  differences  and  not  of  racial  identities. 
The  differences  that  have  already  been  obtained  are  greater  than 
could  reasonably  be  attributed  to  errors  of  accident  or  the  crude- 
ness  of  methods. 

In  accord  with  the  foregoing  facts  and  theories  are  the  data  that 
have  been  presented  in  this  study.  The  two  racial  groups  considered 
showed  mental  differences  that  were  important  and  constant.  In 
every  subject  of  study  the  white  group  attained  a  higher  average  of 
scholarship.     In  every  year  of  school  work,  the  white  group  passed 


CONCLUSION  67 

in  a  much  larger  percentage  of  studies.     The  colored  group  is  always 
more  advanced  in  age  than  the  white  group  of  corresponding  grade. 
The  colored  group  require  from  a  term  to  a  year  longer  to  com- 
plete the  grammar  school  course  than  do  the  whites.     All  these  im-  j 
portant  facts  point  in  the  direction  of  a  difference  in  race  psychology.  "^ 

'Now,  if  we  admit  that  white  pupils  on  the  whole  surpass  colored 
pupils  in  school  ability,  we  may  well  ask  whether  this  is  due  to 
causes  that  are  accidental,  temporary  and  removable,  or  to  causea 
that  are  fundamental  and  ineradicable  In  other  words,  is  this  dif- 
ference a  matter  of  opportunity,  or  of  heredity.  The  answer  may 
not  be  certainly  known.  But  in  as  much  as  everything  in  the  power 
of  educator,  philanthropist,  and  law  giver  has  been  done  for  the 
equalization  of  opportunity,  it  is  hard  to  escape  the  conclusion  that  , 
the  fundamental  explanation  of  the  difference  in  scholastic  standing 
is  to  be  found  mainly  in  the  factor  of  race  heredity.  It  is  due  to  a 
real  difference  in  the  general  mental  equipment  of  the  two  races — 
a  difference  that  has  been  brought  about  through  physiological  and 
mental  evolution,  and  which  can  never  be  equalized  by  processes  of 
education  and  training.  We  do  not  hesitate,  however,  to  record  the 
opinion  that  racial  differences  are  in  reality  much  smaller  than  tra- 
ditional anthropology,  as  well  as  popular  opinion,  would  lead  us  to 
believe.  Between  the  white  race  and  the  colored  race  as  found  in  the 
northern  cities  of  the  United  States  the  overlapping  is  pronounced, 
and  the  difference  between  their  average  standing  in  mental  work 
is  not  very  great.  Thomas  Jefferson's  observation  that  a  negro 
' '  Could  scarcely  be  found  capable  of  tracing  and  comprehending  the 
investigations  of  Euclid,  "^°  is  certainly  incorrect,  if  applied  to  the 
group  here  studied.  If  the  work  of  all  the  colored  pupils  in  our 
high  schools  were  distributed  with  that  of  the  whites,  it  would  give  us  ; 
a  distribution  practically  the  same  as  that  of  the  whites  alone.  The 
curve  of  distribution  would  be  unimodal  and  of  the  same  general 
form,  but  the  median  mark  would  be  somewhat  lowered.  The  fact 
that  the  coeducation  of  the  races  is  possible  and  practicable  is  in 
itself  conclusive  evidence  that  the  distribution  of  abilities  among 
the  two  races  is  very  largely  the  same. 

But  another  factor  which  may  be  of  greater  significance  for  the 
social  progress  and  intellectual  capabilities  of  a  race  than  its  average 
standing  in  any  or  all  sorts  of  mental  work  is  its  intellectual  variabil- 
ity. The  capacity  of  a  race  for  independent  progress  depends  in  a 
very  large  measure  upon  its  capacity  to  produce  in  considerable 
numbers  men  of  very  high  ability.  It  is  the  man  of  genius  upon 
whom  social  progress  has  ever  depended.     Advancement  in  civiliza- 

»»" Notes  on  the  State  of  Virginia,"  p.  179. 


68  MENTAL  CAPACITY  OF  TEE  AMEBICAN  NEGBO 

tion  has  always  been  a  matter  of  discovery  and  invention  by  the  few, 
and  of  assimilation  and  appropriation  by  the  many.  Now  the 
greater  the  inherent  variability  of  a  race  in  mental  qualities,  the 
greater  will  be  its  chances  of  producing  men  of  that  order  of  ability 
ranked  as  genius.  Hence  it  follows  that  the  capabilities  of  a  race 
are  to  be  judged  less  by  the  average  ability  of  its  members  than  by 
the  limits  of  its  hereditary  variation  from  this  average,  and  the  con- 
sequent number  of  its  men  of  high  ability. 

Though  very  little  is  as  yet  definitely  known  about  the  variability 
of  races,  there  is  some  evidence  that  the  European  white  is  more 
variable  than  the  negro,  and  that  civilized  peoples  are  more  vari- 
able than  primitive  peoples.  Also,  as  between  the  sexes,  that  man 
is  more  variable  than  woman.  If  this  may  be  assumed  as  a  biological 
fact,  it  will  afford  something  of  a  scientific  explanation  of  the  rare- 
ness of  real  genius  both  in  the  negro  race  and  among  the  women  of 
European  nations.  Dr.  C.  S.  Myers,  in  discussing  the  subject  of 
differences  on  racial  and  sexual  variability,  makes  the  following 
important  observations:  "A  civilized  community  may  not  differ 
much  from  a  primitive  one  in  the  mean  or  average  of  a  given  char- 
acter, but  the  extreme  deviations  which  it  shows  from  that  mean  will 
be  more  numerous  and  more  pronounced.  .  .  . 

"  Similar  features  undoubtedly  meet  us  in  the  study  of  sexual 
differences.  The  average  results  of  various  tests  of  mental  ability 
applied  to  men  and  women,  are  not,  on  the  whole,  very  different  for 
the  two  sexes,  but  the  men  always  show  considerably  greater  individ- 
ual variation  than  the  women.  .  .  . 

''For  aught  we  know  to  the  contrary  the  essential  functions  of 
womanhood  may  be  the  determinants  not  only  of  their  special  sexual 
physical  features  but  also  of  greater  uniformity  of  mental  character. 
So,  too,  the  particular  environment  in  which  the  color  and  physique 
of  the  negro  have  been  evolved  may  have  induced  a  still  more  uni- 
form mediocrity  of  mental  ability.  .  .  .  Certainly  there  is  not  an 
instance  of  first-class  musical  genius  .  .  .  among  European  women, 
despite  centuries  of  opportunity.  And  so,  too,  there  is  not  an  in- 
stance of  first-class  genius  in  a  pure-blooded  American  negro,  despite 
the  numbers  of  them  who  receive  a  university  training  in  the  United 
States.  "31 

Discussing  the  subject  of  difference  in  sexual  variability,  Pro- 
fessor Thorndike  says:  "Such  a  difference  does  exist  in  the  case  of 
boys  and  girls,  the  latter  being  the  less  variable.  .  .  .  The  difference 
is  of  much  theoretical  importance  to  general  psychology  but  has 
little  bearing  on  the  work  of  education  in  the  lower  grades.  It  does 
""Papers  on  Inter-Eacial  Problems,"  pp.  76-77. 


CONCLUSION  69 

account  for  the  fact  that  the  most  striking  and  extreme  cases  of 
any  mental  trait  are  much  more  often  found  in  boys  than  in  girls.  "^^ 

Also  Dr.  Hrdlicka,  in  an  anthropological  study  of  a  large  number 
of  white  and  colored  children  of  both  sexes,  says :  "  In  a  general  way 
it  can  be  stated  that  the  white  children  present  more  diversity,  the 
negro  children  more  uniformity,  in  all  their  normal  physical  char- 
acters. This  becomes  gradually  more  marked  as  the  age  of  the  chil- 
dren advances.  "^^  Although  this  latter  observation  refers  to  physical 
traits  only,  we  may  readily  assume  that  this  same  racial  difference 
in  variability  may  also  extend  to  mental  traits. 

If,  then,  there  are  wider  variations  in  intellectual  endowments 
from  the  mean  or  average  ability  in  some  one  race  than  in  others, 
that  race  would  naturally  have  an  advantage  in  the  way  of  producing 
men  of  high  ability,  and  would  therefore  be  more  capable  of  making 
great  social  progress,  and  would  moreover  in  this  sense  be  a  supe- 
rior race.  So  far  as  the  facts  are  known,  this  seems  to  be  the  case  as 
applied  to  the  negro  and  white  races. 

In  our  own  study  of  the  two  groups  of  high  school  pupils,  how- 
ever, the  fact  of  greater  racial  mental  variability  is  not  at  all  pro- 
nounced, though  the  whites  were  slightly  more  variable.  The  aver- 
age deviation  of  the  white  group  from  their  mean  scholastic  attain- 
ment was  7,  while  that  of  the  colored  group  was  6.5.  In  other 
words  the  colored  group  was  about  93  per  cent,  as  variable  as  the 
white  group. ^*  It  may  be  noted,  however,  that  school  life  and  activ- 
ities may  offer  only  a  narrow  field  for  testing  the  hereditary  varia- 
bility of  groups ;  also  that  the  colored  group  which  we  have  studied 
is  of  mixed  racial  heredity,  and  is  probably  more  variable  on  this 
account.  The  same  sort  of  study  of  two  groups  of  pure  racial  type 
would  probably  show  a  greater  difference  in  variability. 

From  all  the  observations  and  measurements  that  have  come  under 
consideration  we  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  as  regards  the  mental 
heredity  of  the  negro  and  white  races  as  represented  in  our  Northern 

»^" Notes  on  Child  Study,"  p.  168. 

33  "Anthropological  Study  of  One  Thousand  White  and  Colored  Children," 
p.  59. 

"  Probably,  however,  some  allowance  should  be  made  for  the  fact  that  the 
average  for  the  white  group  was  higher  than  for  the  colored.  If  we  adopt  Pear- 
son's  coefficient  of  variation,  and  divide  the  average  deviation  of  each  group  by 
the  group  average  before  comparing  the  variabilities  of  the  two  groups,  we  reach 
the  conclusion  that  the  colored  group  is  99  per  cent,  as  variable  as  the  white.  If, 
however,  we  adopt  Thorndike's  suggestion  that  the  proper  allowance  is  ob- 
tained by  dividing  the  average  deviation  by  the  square  root  of  the  group  average, 
we  then  reach  the  result  that  the  colored  group  is  96  per  cent,  as  variable  as  the 
white. 


^ 


70  MmT4L  CdPACiTY  OF  THE  AMEBIC  AN  NEGEO 

States,  the  average  mental  ability  of  the  white  race,  so  far  as  this 
ability  is  exercised  in  school  studies,  is  higher,  but  not  a  great  deal 
higher,  than  that  of  the  colored  race ;  and  that  as  regards  the  matter 
of  mental  variability,  the  white  race  is  more  variable,  but  not  a  great 
deal  more  variable,  than  is  the  negro  race.  But  the  importance  of 
small  differences  in  hereditary  traits  is  not  to  be  overlooked.  In  the 
struggle  for  supremacy  or  survival,  these  small  differences  may  be, 
and  no  doubt  often  are,  the  determining  factor.  The  matter  of 
greater  variability  is  of  chief  advantage  to  the  race  because  of  its 
furnishing  a  basis  for  a  wider  departure  from  the  average  off- 
spring, and  consequently  for  the  production  of  a  greater  number  of 
highly  gifted  individuals.  It  is  by  the  production  of  these  highly 
gifted  individuals  that  social  progress  and  racial  supremacy  are 
assured. 

The  foregoing  conclusions  seem  clearly  deducible  from  the  data 
compiled  and  presented.  They  are  also  in  accord,  except  in  theii* 
moderation,  with  the  teachings  of  history  and  anthropology,  and 
with  the  views  commonly  accepted  among  those  who  have  made  ex- 
tensive observations  upon  the  races.  There  seem  to  be  no  statistical 
grounds  for  holding  to  the  view  of  substantial  racial  mental  equality. 
Our  data  point  clearly  to  a  measurable  degree  of  mental  difference. 
And  this  is  believed  to  be  the  view  that  will  be  ultimately  gained 
from  a  purely  scientific  study  of  the  question,  stripped,  on  the  one 
hand,  of  philanthropic  considerations,  and,  on  the  other,  of  racial 
bias. 


Vita 

Born  March  1,  1871,  near  Prestonburg,  Ky.  Degree  of  A.B. 
1894,  Lebanon  University,  Lebanon,  Ohio.  Degree  of  Pd.D.  1903, 
New  York  University.     Degree  of  A.M.  1904,  New  York  University. 


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